


share my secrets with you

by Eisoj5



Series: different ever after: The Sisters Brothers (2018) works [3]
Category: The Sisters Brothers (2018)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Anal Sex, Bad Sex, Better Sex?, Blow Jobs, Canon-Typical Everything, Consent Issues, Hand Jobs, Intercrural Sex, M/M, Mutual Pining, POV Alternating, Tags May Change
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-10-20
Updated: 2019-03-16
Packaged: 2019-08-04 17:27:39
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 22,054
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16351013
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eisoj5/pseuds/Eisoj5
Summary: Warm worked out the calculations over lunch.[On an irregular posting schedule in summer 2019.]





	1. wolf creek

**Author's Note:**

> For specifics on the tag "consent issues" in this first chapter, please see the end notes.

Warm worked out the calculations over lunch. 

They were traveling in the same direction already, and he thought he would be safer in Morris’s company at mealtimes and at night than in his host’s covered wagon. Morris knew what he was about, Warm was sure of that. A gentleman of his fastidious tastes and obvious wealth—he had not been among the men raising buildings in Myrtle Creek, Warm would have remembered his hands hauling on the ropes, the strain of his voice—did not travel alone without some skill with a pistol. 

Though of course Warm hoped any and all future confrontations, should they have the ill fortune to encounter outlaws and bandits, would be conducted civilly. And while there were but a few days between Wolf Creek and Jacksonville, where Morris said he had business, relying on Morris's generosity would help conserve his own increasingly limited funds. 

Morris might have believed he had stood Warm a meal, but it had not been that simple; he had expressed concern over Warm’s money woes and exclaimed over his travel situation, and suggested that he might be able to help. Those gifts incurred obligations, and Warm was determined to meet them swiftly. 

It would not be a great hardship, Warm thought, looking across the dining table at Morris's kind eyes, his ready, soft smile, the refined manners he displayed even in their rough surroundings. And he did not think Morris would object to being repaid; Warm was clever with his hands, and if it came to it, his mouth. He resolved to propose the arrangement promptly after lunch, before Morris might politely take his leave. 

But then Morris bought him a _horse_ , and all his careful planning was lost. 

There was no protesting it. Morris believed he had struck a bargain for the horse, and tack besides. Warm could only stand there outside the pen dumbly, watching the money change hands. Morris looked back at him and gave him a nod and another smile, as if he thought it perfectly normal to spend _forty dollars_ on—on—

Warm mustered up a smile of his own. 

He had underestimated Morris's interest, that was all. 

Warm supposed his unusual appearance in comparison to most of the folk on the California Trail might be attractive to a worldly gentleman; he had received some such attention already, though most of the suspicious and covetous looks had been directed at his dwindling purse rather than his person. 

He did not bother to dwell on the rest; it made him too pessimistic. But Morris had gone to quite the expense, and that meant he anticipated acts in which Warm had not found pleasure, but which such a debt demanded. 

And Warm could certainly understand it, if Morris was lonesome. Morris undoubtedly had his fair share of companions whenever he came to rest in a town larger than Wolf Creek; he cut a fine figure in his linens, even if they were somewhat wrinkled from riding, and of course Warm himself had been drawn to him for his lingering smile and thoughtful behavior. It only stood to reason that Morris desired an intimate to share the long solitary days and nights on the trail. 

He would simply have to ensure that Morris did not find him wanting. 

They set out soon after, Warm having procured additional provisions. Numerous wagon trains made the journey to California now, some better supplied than others, but he thought he might try to keep a distance, the better to acquaint himself with Morris. 

Except Morris did not say much as they departed Wolf Creek in the flat dusty light of afternoon, perhaps allowing Warm to re-accustom himself to riding without distraction. Warm looked back at the town after an hour or two, as it receded into a smudge of smoke and storefronts on the horizon; it was so small, so inconsequential, and yet his fortunes had changed so dramatically within it. There were no signposts for such places in a man's life, and if Morris had handed him a map, he might not have even been able to mark it. 

“Did you forget something?” Morris asked solicitously. 

Warm turned his gaze toward him. “I have everything I need at the present moment.” He forced his hands to grip the reins more loosely. “Morris, I'm grateful—”

Morris was shaking his head. “Mr. Warm—” 

“—beyond what words can convey,” Warm said. He looked around, squinting a bit when he glanced directly into the sun. No one had followed them from town and there was no one in sight ahead. Still, there was always the possibility, so he gave Morris a bright smile, his heart beating fast, and said, “If you will follow me?” and turned his horse out of the wagon rut towards a small copse of trees a few hundred yards distant. 

*

Morris was too confused to go after him, at first. 

Possibilities wove through his mind like spiders’ webs. Had he been _too_ generous, and now Warm contrived to rob him of all he carried? Had Warm somehow discovered his true motivations, and thus intended to kill him before he could complete his task? 

He frowned. Warm was riding farther away, nearly disappearing between the rise and fall of the land, not yet so far that Morris had to take out his binoculars. He checked his gun, instead, and nudged his horse after. It would resolve itself, one one way or another, although Morris hoped he would not have to kill the man in self-defense; that would complicate things with the Sisters brothers and the Commodore. 

As Morris rode up, however, he recognized that he had not considered a third possibility: he was chasing a madman. Warm had tethered his horse to one of the short scrubby trees and was taking off his clothes. 

“What are you doing?” Morris said, sharply. 

Warm paused with one leg out of his pants. “Expressing my deepest gratitude,” he said, looking quizzically up at Morris. “Did you want to wait until nightfall? I thought I might be too sore from riding by then.” 

Morris stared at him. 

Warm’s eyes were very wide and dark, and there was nothing in them that read of deception, and Morris began to swiftly realize a _fourth_ possibility. He _had_ spent too much money too quickly, on a—a penniless, handsome _stranger,_ who was now standing in front of him in nothing but his threadbare drawers, expecting to be _fucked._

Morris dismounted his horse hastily, placing his mount between him and Warm and pretending to attend to his saddle. His heart was in his throat. He had not intended this outcome, not in the slightest—but if he turned Warm down, he would embarrass the man, _and_ he had no good alternative explanation for why he was going to such expense on Warm’s behalf. And then Warm _would_ become suspicious. 

He tied his horse to another spindly tree and stepped out from behind it, his mind made up. 

It would not be a great hardship; Warm was _willing_ , and quite comely to look at, besides. He was uniformly tawny, not tanned just on his face and hands like the majority of the people on the trails who were simply sunburnt, and although he was short, he was well-proportioned, with broad shoulders and a trim waist that had been hidden by a set of clothes rather worse for wear. At lunch, Morris had noticed that Warm had elegant hands, better suited for a pen or pencil than the various rough work Warm had put them to along his journey, and his lively eyes and quick tongue spoke of a highly intelligent mind. 

Morris hesitated, stripping off his coat and laying it carefully over a branch. If they had met under different circumstances—if he set aside his purpose, his duty to the Commodore—he thought they could have been friends. 

Still, though—“Have you ever done this before?” Morris asked. Warm’s face cleared of worry and he came forward to unbutton Morris’s waistcoat. 

Warm cast a glance up at him through his eyelashes— _God,_ they were long, and framed his eyes prettily, and Morris’s breath came faster, as Warm finished unbuttoning his waistcoat and moved on to his shirt. His hands had made no surreptitious gestures towards Morris’s pocket watch, and they were—warm, through the fabric. “Once or twice,” he said, evasive for the first time since they had spoken. 

“All right,” Morris said, weakly. He thought perhaps he should reassure Warm, or do _something_ to cement the man’s impression of the arrangement, and so he let Warm slide his shirt and waistcoat off of his shoulders and then stepped closer to kiss him. Warm stiffened for a moment, and Morris quailed, but then Warm’s lips parted under his, and it _was_ all right. He put his hand on the back of Warm’s neck, stroking gently, and Warm actually moaned against his mouth, the sound going straight to his cock. 

He broke the kiss, hurriedly, though he was hard-pressed to say why; that was what Warm expected to transpire between them. Warm took a step back and licked his lips. They were very pink, and Morris wondered if Warm was going to drop to his knees, and _that_ made him all the harder. 

But Warm smiled, a little helplessly, and said, “I begged a tin of grease from the cook—” and Morris stopped breathing entirely. 

He nodded, not trusting himself to speak, and Warm went and got it from his bag, and blankets to lay out. Morris went about trampling some of the tall golden bunches of grass flat, and then Warm threw the corner of a blanket to him, the whole thing billowing like a sail between them. He yanked it down and sat on it. Warm was spreading out, completely naked and—and making himself ready. 

It was hard to look at Warm. The sun polished every part of him bronze, and his eyes, even half-closed, shone like live coals. Morris took off his pants and folded them so he would not have to keep looking at him; he turned back, and Warm’s mouth was twitching. 

“What?” Morris said. 

“Oh—I wasn’t laughing at you,” Warm said, reaching over and wrapping his long slender fingers around Morris’s cock. “I was guessing that your first stop in each town must be the laundry.” 

“ _That_ was what you were thinking about?” Morris gritted out, with an effort. Warm smiled, and let go after a couple more pulls. He turned over onto his hands and knees, and Morris let out a shaky breath. Warm had nearly brought him off already—it had been some time since anyone had touched him in that fashion—and he thought himself likely to finish quickly. He supposed that would satisfy the letter of Warm’s expectations. 

He lined himself up and began to press inside. Warm drew a swift breath and bowed his head between his shoulders; Morris ran a hand over Warm’s back in a caress, and thrust all the way in, and Warm made another quiet sound and shuddered. 

“Warm?” Morris said, uncertainly. 

Warm said nothing, but Morris heard his gasping, panting breaths, and felt the tension in his spine, as if Warm was a rope pulled taut in his hands. He thrust again, more carefully, and that time he was sure Warm had bit his lip in an attempt to stifle a cry of pain, not pleasure. 

Morris took a couple of deep breaths to calm down—not easy with Warm tight around him—and withdrew, falling back on the blankets and pulling a fold of it up to cover himself. He turned his head to look at Warm. 

Warm had pushed back to his knees, hunched over with his hands in fists on his thighs, and was staring back at him, breathing raggedly. “I—”

“I thought you said you had done this before,” Morris said, without rancor. 

Warm swallowed; he was shivering. Morris thought it was because of the light wind blowing across them, but the words that followed made him doubt that. “I had. It was—over quickly, and I thought I could bear it again, for your sake—” 

Morris’s blood ran cold, and he felt a black murderous urge towards—he thought it might have been the host of his covered wagon that Warm meant, and it was easier to direct his anger there. “I have no desire to harm you,” he said, and told himself it was true. 

At that, the remaining rigidity went out of Warm’s posture, and he sank down on his stomach, just at arm’s reach, and buried his face in his arms. “I knew you were kind,” he said. His voice was soft and muffled by the blanket, but it was a dagger to Morris’s heart nonetheless. 

Morris rolled over and rubbed his hand over Warm’s back, tentatively. Warm sighed under his touch, and Morris dared to move closer, pressing along Warm’s side; he was nearly holding Warm in his arms. “There was no established laundry in Wolf Creek,” he said, trying to put the other man at ease, and Warm snickered. “It is a travesty, that I have run out of clean shirts and must rotate through ones that are soiled—”

“Couldn’t you have bought more?” Warm lifted his head from the blanket, and he was smiling somewhat; Morris breathed easier. “In the general store, I mean.” 

“Yes, but then—” Morris was about to joke that other less fortunate men would have nothing to wear, but Warm _was_ one of those less fortunate men, and he was currently wearing—nothing whatsoever. He stopped, and looked at where his hand had settled on Warm’s lower back, his fingertips brushing the knobs of Warm’s spine. 

“But then what?” 

“Then I would put other laundries out of business,” Morris finished, lamely. 

“That’s good of you to consider,” Warm said, and he sounded sincere. A shiver went through him again, and Morris could not help himself; he drew Warm into his arms fully, so that his chest was against Warm’s back. He reached over Warm and tugged the far edge of the blanket up, ineffectually—

“We are lying on it,” Warm said, into Morris’s arm. “But it’s all right, thank you. We should resume our travels.” Warm made as if to get up, and Morris—did not let him. He felt strangely remorseful, but reluctant to give up the truth of the matter, and Warm _would_ become suspicious—

“Morris?” Warm said, hesitantly. He did not struggle to pull free. “I—am game to try again, if you—” 

“No, I think not,” Morris said, and slid his hand down to grasp Warm’s cock. 

Warm’s entire body tensed in his embrace; he panted as Morris worked him gently at first, and then firmer as Warm writhed and began to moan. Morris put his head very close to his ear to whisper, “You must tell me if I hurt you—” and Warm cried out and came. 

Morris turned over and saw to himself, quickly. He had grown hard once more with Warm squirming against him, but thought it better to let Warm be; he had finally gone utterly limp and lay half-asleep on the blankets. After he wiped his hand off on the grass he looked around and found Warm sitting up and putting his pants on. 

“I could have done that for you,” Warm said, darting a glance at Morris. “I—owe you much.” 

Morris felt his mouth twist in something akin to a smile, though it felt like a grimace, and he forced words out past his teeth. “For now, let us say that I am glad for your companionship?” Warm’s brow furrowed, and his mouth worked disconcertingly under his mustache, and Morris added, “Perhaps after nightfall, when we have made camp, and we may be more comfortable.” Warm nodded, and got up to pluck the remainder of his clothes from the trees, speaking to his horse quietly as he held onto the saddle to steady himself while he put his boots on. 

Morris sat there for a moment longer, looking at the man he had been sent to capture and with whom he was going to share his blankets, and calculated the number of days until Jacksonville. 

*


	2. on the trail

Warm thought he had made a mistake. 

He'd been right to believe he would be sore after a day of riding; he was no stranger to horseback, but following the wagon train had meant walking, mostly, with the occasional ride in the back of the bed. Although Morris set an easy pace, riding until dusk equated hours in the saddle—hours Warm had at first spent amusing himself by estimating the time solely by observing the sun’s position, and then explaining to a perplexed Morris what he was doing.

Warm had found himself doing that quite often in his travels, explaining his scientific curiosity to people who wondered at him examining a rock or an insect with his hand lens, or counting an unexpectedly high number of meteors as they fell to earth one night. But unlike most others who were apt to dismiss Warm’s naturalist tendencies as impractical, foolish fancy, Morris had taken out his pocket watch to check the time, and then asked him to guess it at odd intervals, beaming with delight when Warm came within minutes of what his watch read. 

It was easy to talk to Morris. He had a genuine inquisitiveness about what Warm’s cross-continental journey had been like, particularlyhow Warm thought he had come to survive the dysentery that had struck down nearly half of his fellow travelers. Though he was polite in refraining from too many comparisons that would illustrate his own wealth, as if he was concerned about reminding Warm of his proliferating debts. 

Which was, unfortunately, impossible. Warm _knew_ that he should not have allowed Morris to treat him so kindly; that he should have insisted upon a proper consummation of their arrangement so that it did not linger like a miasma over his thoughts. And thus he was in no small amount of discomfort in both mind and body, though he thought he hid the latter reasonably well as he dismounted and led his horse slowly to the site Morris had selected for their camp among the trees. 

Dinner was a small and quiet affair compared to the lunch they had shared in Wolf Creek, or the endlessly raucous meals that Warm had braved on the trail. There was no need to build a large fire, as the early evenings were becoming more comfortable as spring progressed. Morris had dragged over a log to sit on, and Warm was reclining against it by Morris’s feet, drinking a weak tea and wondering if he should switch to whiskey. At least the bread was freshly made as of the morning, and not piquant with the beginnings of mold, nor stale. Morris had even sprung for canned peaches, which he tried to eat daintily but could not prevent from dripping syrup down his hand, to Warm’s barely suppressed amusement. 

Morris held can and fork out to him with a raised eyebrow. “I have seen _you_ slurp your soup and attempt to speak around a mouthful,” he said, teasing. Warm grinned, caught Morris’s wrist, and turned the jest back on him by licking the syrup from his knuckles. Morris stilled with surprise, unable to look away until Warm finished, his blue eyes shining with a fervor Warm thought he recognized. 

He took the can and fork out of Morris’s hand and set them on the ground, and then he came around on his knees to address the fastenings of Morris’s pants—

“Warm,” Morris said, with a laugh in his voice and a hand on Warm’s shoulder. “I cannot fail to appreciate it, but you are—overeager.” 

Warm sat back on his heels and looked up at him. “You would rather have your dinner now, and _then_ have me?” 

Morris’s face colored. He jerked his head in a brief nod. 

“Well, all right,” Warm said, relieved somewhat, and put his back to the log again, picking up the can of peaches. He glanced up. Morris was staring down at him with the same bemused expression he had worn when he had caught Warm sighting the sun with his fingers. Warm waved the fork in the air, and added, through a mouthful of peaches, “Thank you for these,” and the lines at the corners of Morris’s eyes eased. 

“You’re welcome,” Morris said, returning his gaze to the plate of beans and bread resting precariously on the log beside him. He hesitated, clearly warring with himself about something; Warm watched his mouth contorting under his beard with some fascination, and then Morris sighed and looked around at him. “Might I have my fork back, please?” 

Warm huffed a laugh and handed it over. 

After dinner, though, Morris did not beckon Warm to resume where he had left off, instead busying himself with various activities: he put his plate and mug away, even though he would only have to get them out again in the morning; lit a cigar; disassembled one of his pistols entirely, inspected the pieces carefully, and reassembled it by the dwindling light of the fire. 

Warm, meanwhile, saw to their horses, and then came back to find Morris writing in his journal. 

“Would you like to know what kind of grass the horses are eating?” Warm asked, dropping his blankets on the ground by the log. 

A small smile tugged at Morris’s lips. “What kind?”

Warm shrugged, and went around their campsite in search of a stick suitable for poking at the fire. “I don’t know,” he said. “There must be someone who’s made a study of the things horses most like to graze, don’t you think?”

“I suppose.” Morris glanced briefly once more at his journal, and then shut it, gazing at Warm with his brow creasing in concern. “If I am not mistaken, you have been carrying yourself rather stiffly—”

Warm shook his head, suddenly wary; he could _not_ let Morris put him off again, lest they arrive in Jacksonville with him practically bound to Morris in indenture. “It's nothing, I'm only a little saddle sore.”

“You should have mentioned something earlier,” Morris chastised him, not unkindly. He got to his feet and went to rummage about in his bags, adding, over his shoulder, “Take your clothes off and lie down.” 

Warm stood blinking at him for a moment, and then hastened to comply. Morris's tone gave no indication of what, precisely, was to come, but while Warm was unsurprised to see Morris return without his coat and vest, his shirt unbuttoned and sleeves rolled to the elbows, Warm did _not_ expect him to return bearing something wrapped in cloth, which proved to be a glass bottle of—

Warm propped himself up on an elbow and said, indignantly, “I am not a _horse!”_

Morris had knelt down, unscrewing the cap of the bottle of horse liniment, and the smell of camphor was very strong. “It will help,” he said. “At least, I expect it will, if it works on horses.”

“You are joking,” Warm said, blankly. 

“Consider it a scientific experiment?” Morris flashed a brilliant smile at Warm, and gestured for him to turn over onto his stomach. 

Warm did so, although he muttered, skeptically, “That would require devising a reliable system of measurement for— _oh.”_ Morris’s hands were rubbing his lower back, long fingers stroking the salve into his skin, and he put his head down into his arms and groaned, helplessly. No one had touched him with this sort of kindness _except_ Morris for longer than he cared to admit, and it was nearly overwhelming. 

“Warm?” Morris paused. “Being as you are _not_ a horse, it would be helpful if you could indicate whether I am hurting you?”

“No, I’m all right,” Warm said, and tried to gather his wits about him. “Please—continue.” 

“All right,” Morris said, resuming the motion of his hands. They were quite marvelous, Warm thought, remembering the feel of Morris stroking his cock, and he wondered if that was in the offing again. After he insisted on trying the other thing, of course. 

Morris evidently was thinking about that as well. His hands drifted lower and became more gentle, even as Warm’s ass was quite possibly the sorest part of him and could use the most kneading. Warm nudged him with his elbow and said, “Morris, the tin of—of grease is in my bag. I would get it, but you have put me into a state—”

“You do recall that I _did_ hurt you, earlier,” Morris said. 

“Yes, but—”

“And that you are terribly stiff and sore from riding all afternoon, and that engaging in such activity will only make tomorrow’s journey the worse?” Morris said, but he was taking off his pants, and he _was_ hard. 

Warm swallowed. His heart beat faster, and he told himself it would be all right, that Morris was strangely insistent on causing him as little pain as possible; Morris might insist on his mouth, first, but that was to be expected, after the game he had played before, with the peaches. “Yes.”

“Then _stop trying_ to get me to fuck you,” Morris said, and swung his leg over Warm’s body to straddle the backs of his legs. Warm twisted around and gaped at him in confusion and astonishment, but Morris was pressing down on him, and—and—pushing his cock between Warm’s thighs. 

Warm gasped and went flat on his stomach again. Morris was partially braced on his hands over him, his breath panting on the back of Warm’s neck as he thrust. Warm whined and attempted to wriggle underneath him, to no avail; his own stiffening cock was trapped against the blankets, but his thighs were still too sore to manage much movement. Morris had not applied liniment there, and from the near-burning, tingling sensation along his spine, he could guess why. 

As it was, Morris’s cock was hot enough, gliding silkily into the space between Warm’s legs. Warm tried to clench his thighs, to offer more tension or friction, but they spasmed, instead, and Morris said breathlessly, “Lie still—”

Warm put his head down into his arms, letting himself be carried along as Morris found a rhythm and began to thrust in earnest. His thighs were slippery with sweat and trembling, despite his best efforts to relax; Morris sensed it and bore down on him harder, pinning him flat into the blankets. He was drowning in the heady scents of camphor and cigar smoke, and the feeling of Morris’s cock sliding against his sensitive skin was almost unbearably intimate, despite Morris having been _inside_ him, before, and he felt Morris’s weight on him like gravity pulling him into the earth. 

Morris muttered another soft, sincerely felt curse, and came. Warm braced himself to take the rest of Morris’s weight, but he held himself up on his forearms and pressed his face against the back of Warm’s neck, breathing heavily. Warm let Morris rest there a moment; his beard was a little rough on Warm’s skin, and the fall of Morris’s hair tickled the curve of his ear, but lying like this, it was easy to pretend they were truly lovers. 

And then Morris pushed away and sat up, making a face at his hands. “I’m sorry I cannot do for you in kind again,” he said, holding his hands out to show Warm that they were still coated with a thin film of the liniment. 

“I imagine that would be fairly unpleasant,” Warm agreed, using a corner of the blanket to wipe himself clean. He thought about it for a second, and said, slowly, “Though it does appear to have helped my back?”

Morris grinned at him. “Then I shall consider the experiment a success.” 

Warm smiled back; he had satisfied Morris on more than one account. 

*

Hours later, Morris could not understand why he was still awake. He had exerted himself considerably—twice, sort of—to fulfill Warm’s expectations of their arrangement, and usually such exertions put him into more of a lassitude. Yet _Warm_ lay asleep at his back, huddled and hidden completely beneath the blanket, and he was left staring into the dark as alert as if he had drunk three cups of coffee. 

He supposed it was entirely possible to talk himself into believing it was because someone was needed to stand watch, but they were far from the wagon ruts, so the horses would not be heard, and the fire was banked well enough not to be visible. 

Morris’s fingers itched for his journal; his thoughts were as scattered as sparks, and putting pencil to paper usually made them burn more steadily. Instead, he carefully withdrew his pocket watch and squinted at it unsuccessfully. He wondered if Warm had a method for ascertaining the time by the movement of the stars. 

It seemed very peculiar, Morris considered, that the Commodore would hire him and the Sisters brothers to pursue and kill such a man as Warm. He was a fair judge of character, or else he would not have been efficacious in his line of work, and he had not observed any signs of criminality about Warm whatsoever. 

Morris had observed Warm nearly all day since they left Wolf Creek, excepting when he had ridden ahead to scout the camp. He had even observed Warm in the altogether—twice, his traitorous memory reminded him, and he made a sound in the back of his throat and carefully edged away from the reach of Warm’s graceful limbs—and there was simply _nothing_ about his behavior that was conniving, or deceitful. 

Playful, perhaps, and a bit eccentric, but only insofar as he was curious about the world, Morris thought. And it was refreshing, to see a man who had encountered so many hardships still animated and enterprising. Warm was undoubtedly buoyed somewhat by the promise of the gold fields in California, but he had barely spoken about that goal in passing, unlike many, many other prospectors who could talk of nothing else. 

Morris looked over towards the horses. Warm had a journal, too, in the sole bag he carried, and it would be easy to lift it and find out why the Commodore wanted him dead—but just as easy to ask, if Warm continued in his slightly bizarre frankness. He had only to devise the right question. 

By the morning, though, nothing had come to mind. 

Morris was certain he had slept, if only because he had awoken, alone; Warm had relit the fire and was making a fresh pot of tea. 

“You don’t have coffee, do you?” Warm said, when he realized Morris was looking at him. 

Morris shook his head. “What passes for coffee on the trail cannot be borne by civilized man,” he said, rubbing his eyes, and Warm laughed. Somehow, Warm looked as fresh and cool as if he had bathed, but Morris knew that was highly improbable; they were nowhere near a river or creek, though he _had_ sought one. He felt rather dusty and bedraggled in comparison, and so after he arose, he spent a few minutes longer combing his hair and attempting to tame his beard—which, of course, Warm could not let pass unremarked. 

“You don't need to spruce up on my account,” Warm said, as Morris returned to the fire with his mug and plate, feeling much more like his proper self as he retook his seat on the log. “We've already established that you are not currently in possession of a clean shirt—”

“Don't remind me,” Morris muttered, and held his mug out for Warm to pour him some tea. He looked up into Warm's eyes; they were twinkling with good humor, the faint lines at the corners indicative of a light heart rather than weariness and stress. “You are—well, this morning? Not too stiff, for riding?”

Warm gave him a pleased smile. “Not too stiff,” he replied. “Thanks, again, to your horse cure.” 

“Still, we needn't travel so far, today,” Morris said, thoughtfully. “Perhaps only as far as Louse Creek, instead of pushing through the mountains all the way to Jacksonville.”

Warm paused with a biscuit partway to his mouth. “Won't you be late to meet up with your friends?”

“Associates,” Morris corrected him, absently. It would be all right; he could take his time with Warm, to learn what it was he had done to the Commodore and put his own mind at ease about submitting the man to the Sisters brothers. They were undoubtedly a few days behind, and it would be better not to have to stall Warm in Jacksonville. 

“They won't mind?” Warm asked. 

“No, I don't think so,” Morris said. If they were tardy, he was certain Charlie would only use the extra time to get stinking drunk, which would make him more contemptible to deal with, but at least Charlie never went anywhere without Eli's moderating influence. “So it's settled? We shall camp at Louse Creek?” Warm made a face at the name, with which Morris sympathized, but nodded. 

Astride their horses once more and heading south through the valley, Morris found it difficult to determine a suitable question to ask Warm to unravel more of his tale, or even to make idle conversation. Breakfast had not roused him sufficiently, and the cadence of his horse's hooves on the packed dirt was becoming soporific, to the point that Warm rode up alongside him and caught at his reins as he drooped.

“Morris, _you_ should have said something,” he said, gently. “If we are in no hurry, you may as well rest.” 

Morris opened his mouth to protest, but it turned into a yawn, and Warm's mouth curved into another generous smile. 

“Yes, all right,” Morris said, and let himself be led off the trail and up the shaded forest slope. Warm wasn't stripping out of his clothes, for a change, and he hoped that what he had done last night had put at least a temporary halt to Warm's—endeavors. Though, as they found a flat spot and he settled back into the grass with his hat in his hands, he thought it would not be so terrible, if Warm chose to lie beside him, as he had in the night. 

But Warm only sat down with his journal and a stub of pencil, gazing at him, and said, “Shall I wake you at noon?” 

Morris looked up at the sun. It was not yet overhead, and though he was not about to try Warm’s method of determining the time, he judged there were still some hours to go before then. “All right,” he answered, again, and put his hat over his face. 

“May I borrow your watch, then?” 

Morris chuckled and drew it from his pocket, reaching out blindly towards Warm, who took it, his fingertips gracing Morris's palm. 

“Thank you,” Warm said, softly, and after a time listening to Warm's pencil scratching across the page, the whistle of the wind in the trees, Morris went, blessedly, to sleep. 

He awoke to discover the hat that shaded his face was no longer his own. It was smaller in the brim, and black, heated from the sun, and it smelled like—

—it smelled like _Warm._

More precisely, it smelled like the soap Warm must use. Morris had, of course, been more than near enough to Warm's body to recognize the combination of scents: caraway, he thought, and something like cinnamon. 

He drew a breath, slowly, not wanting Warm to know he was awake and had discovered his little mischief quite yet. It was easy to indulge himself in a fantasy of serenity, to relax his shoulders into the divots of the earth. But then he recalled watching Warm drop this very hat over a _chicken_ , and abruptly snatched it off. 

His eyes opened onto the midday sun and the light made hazy spots of his vision. The blurry dark shape of Warm was still next to him; he had also reclined in the grass and propped up one knee, and that was where Morris's hat incongruously rested. When Morris's focus resolved, he saw that Warm was looking at him in the same fashion as when he had licked the syrup off of Morris’s hand, as if he was experimenting to see how Morris would react. It was a curious game, one that invited danger, if he played it with the wrong person, but Morris was a different sort of threat to him. 

Swallowing against that uneasy thought, Morris got to his feet and made a little bow to Warm, with Warm’s hat held over his heart. “I am ready to move on, if you are,” he said, and started to walk back to where they had left the horses. 

Behind him, Warm laughed, and came after in pursuit; he caught up as Morris was untying his horse’s reins, and a grin spread across his face when he saw Morris had donned his black hat at a rakish angle. “That looks well on you, but I fear for your fair skin in the sun.” He offered Morris’s own hat back to him, brim up so Morris could see that his pocket watch lay within.

“Thank you,” Morris said, solemnly, although he was unable to conceal a twitch of his lips. They exchanged hats, and Morris put his watch back in his pocket, before mounting up once more. 

“To Louse Creek,” Warm said, and gestured for Morris to take the lead. 

They did not quite make it to Louse Creek, though, for as they rode down into the Rogue Valley hours later, another creek caught Morris's eyes and ears. Intrigued, he rode ahead and found a little waterfall carving a channel through sharply angled stone walls, feeding into a wide green pool at the bottom. The beach was rocky, but he spied the rings of previous campfires, and the detritus of other travelers passing through the valley, and he thought it would serve. 

Warm agreed, and Morris watched him carefully while they made camp for signs of either the return of his discomfort or that he was going to approach Morris for yet another attempt at intercourse. But instead, before dinner, Warm rolled up his pant legs and waded into the shallows, picking up stones and examining them at length with his hand lens. 

Morris waited for a while, arranging things to his liking around where he would set a fire, and then went down to the water's edge. The waterfall was roaring, and he could not shout to Warm loud enough to be heard, but eventually Warm turned and saw him, and sloshed his way over. 

“What is it?” Warm said. They were standing very close together. Warm was running his thumb over a smooth stone whose true color could not be discerned from the dark shade the water had stained it. 

“If you are prospecting, I could ride on to town and arrange to purchase some gear,” Morris said, lightly. “Or perhaps a plate might serve as a pan, if it does not need to be very deep?”

Warm gave him one of his amused smiles. “I don't need any gear,” he said, but there was an odd note in his voice. 

Morris huffed a laugh. “You are going to San Francisco for the gold, are you not? How will you—” he waved a hand towards the water “—find it?”

Warm studied his face for a moment, and, apparently detecting in Morris’s mystified expression what he sought, said, “That's the question, isn’t it? How does a prospector get at that which he _knows_ is just beneath his feet?” He let the stone fall out of his hand so that it disappeared into the water with a splash, to punctuate his point. “The two answers to that question have always been hard labor, and good fortune. The former is taxing, the latter unreliable.” 

Morris stared at him. “You have a third answer?” 

Warm nodded. “Yesterday, I told you that I am a chemist,” he said, deliberately. 

“And you have a—a what?” Morris racked his mind; the sciences had not been where he had excelled in his studies. He had some notion of ancient myths of alchemical mixtures that had never been successful at turning lead into gold, but that was certainly not what Warm meant. 

“A divining solution,” Warm said. His eyes were half-lidded as he watched Morris mull that over. “It's all right if you don't believe me,” he added, almost too soft to hear over the rushing water. “Most people don't; they think I'm crazy. Or if they _do_ believe me, they wind up wanting to kill me.” 

Morris felt a shudder reverberate through him, but he managed to ask, “As a man of science, have you ever tested it?” 

Warm lifted his head to meet Morris's gaze fully, and he nodded, and Morris thought he had never seen a man so confident in himself, nor so appallingly trusting. 

It was disconcerting, to say the least, and all the more so when the corners of Warm’s mouth quirked as he reached down to take Morris’s hand and led him through the shallows to climb up and sit on the angled slabs of stone—but of course _Warm_ had no intentions of merely sitting still. He knelt over Morris’s lap, careful to keep his damp legs and bare feet from touching Morris’s pants and soaking them, and his clever hands were unbuckling Morris’s belt. 

“Warm—” Morris tried, faintly.

“I think, by now, you can call me Hermann,” Warm said. He wrapped a hand around Morris’s cock and bent his head—“And I don’t mind, if you pull my hair,” he added, and then his mouth was otherwise occupied. 

Morris shut his eyes at first, overcome by both sensation and sight. He had known that Warm was in possession of a very talented tongue, but having it applied thusly was almost too much to bear. Nor could he demur, even if he wanted to; Warm was not in danger of self-injury, and he was not about to force Warm’s head down or pull on Warm’s hair—

—except that his right hand _had_ found its way into Warm’s luxuriously soft hair, and he was twining thick locks of it around his fingers. Warm looked up at him through his dreadfully long eyelashes, and hummed with pleasure, the distended circle of his pink mouth around Morris’s cock frankly obscene, and Morris gave over to it, settling back on the rock as Warm licked and sucked him. 

The late afternoon sun heated his face and Warm’s black hair, and Warm’s mouth was wet and welcoming, and he felt his pleasure surging towards release. He tugged gently on Warm’s curls to warn him, but Warm only accelerated his efforts, making no move to escape his resolution, and then Morris gave a sharp cry, throwing his head back and arching his hips off the rock as he came. 

Warm was lying on his stomach next to Morris when he recovered his senses. He had tidied Morris’s clothing for him, and was idly twisting his bare feet in the air this way and that, and examining the stone they were atop with his hand lens. 

“Mr. Warm,” Morris said, although he did not know quite what he planned to say next as Warm turned the hand lens toward him; it magnified one of his already large brown eyes to a slight degree. 

“Yes, Morris?” 

Morris ran his hand through his hair—it was nowhere near the softness of Warm’s—and said, as though impelled, “I believe you, Hermann.” 

Warm’s face lit up, and Morris thought for a heartbeat that Warm would only have to span a distance of mere inches to kiss him, and that— _that_ made it seem as if the elusive serenity he had almost apprehended before was nearly within his grasp. 

But Morris could not have it; the corollary of believing in Warm was to want to kill him. He split the difference and added, lightly, so Warm’s feelings would not be hurt, “And I think you _are_ a little mad.” 

“That’s all right.” Warm’s smile went enigmatic, and he reached over to pat Morris’s shoulder. “Thank you, Morris.” He put the hand lens away and began to clamber down the rock on his backside. He was whistling, although Morris could not hear much of the tune, and once he reached the water, he hooked his thumbs into his suspenders and made his way back to camp, kicking up great splashes before him as he went. 

It was too much, observing Warm’s carefree and _happy_ manner, utterly unaware of the fate Morris was to orchestrate for him in Jacksonville. 

Morris buried his face in his hands and groaned. 

He had made _so many_ mistakes, and now there was to be no turning back. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Oh, Jacksonville is gonna be quite a lot of fun. For me. To write. :D
> 
> Thanks for reading!!! Glad to have everyone along on this WIP this fall! 
> 
> Many, many, many thanks to morag for cheerleading, beta reading, and also holding my hand through the smut sections <3


	3. the waterfall

Warm awoke feeling quite content in both mind and body, more so than he had in weeks, and loathe to extricate himself from the comfortable nest of blankets to rebuild the fire. He was accustomed to sleeping on unforgiving packed earth beneath wagons or, as was his preference, under the endlessly wheeling stars. But he had generally slept alone, unless one of the dogs that accompanied this or that wagon crept into his blankets seeking respite from their indifferent owners, who often kicked them out for carrying fleas. He had thought Morris might do the same, when he had slipped in beside him the night previous, their first together, though of course Warm kept up his hygiene to a higher standard than most on the trail. 

Then, Morris had instead shifted over to make room, but he was not making any such concession for Warm now. He was a solid comfortable presence, turned onto his side, one arm outflung and lying heavily across Warm’s chest, as if he was barring a door. Warm did not mind that, nor the nearness of Morris’s face to his own, though he found it a little sad that Morris’s brow remained furrowed even in his sleep. There had been nothing they discussed that should concern him so deeply. Still, the seriousness with which Morris carried himself had given way on multiple occasions, and Warm believed those moments of connection, no matter how absurd, were beginning to endear them to each other. They had known each other only a few days, but already Warm felt it would be strange to go on from Jacksonville alone, without the safety and surety of Morris’s company. 

He dared to bring his hand up to touch Morris’s arm, and Morris stirred but only shifted closer, so that Warm felt his hair brushing the back of his ear, and some of the more wiry untrammeled hairs of his beard stuck Warm through the thin fabric of his shirt. His breath was only slightly sour as he exhaled across Warm’s face, and he did not snore, which was a blessing in and of itself. It was altogether far from the worst way Warm had ever awoken, and frankly rather ingratiating. 

Warm wondered if he might persuade Morris to come along to San Francisco once his business was concluded; he had made it more than plain that he was willing to continue repaying Morris for his generosity, after all. And, although Warm felt unpleasantly mercenary about having to consider the necessary logistics for his prospecting endeavor, he privately admitted that he hoped that Morris’s friends might find his plans compelling enough to invest. Perhaps they would be of a kind with Morris, too: thoughtful and intelligent people who would not dismiss him for his idiosyncrasies. Who might want to—

His thoughts were abruptly arrested by the faint change in Morris's breathing that signaled he was coming awake, and he looked and found Morris gazing at him with eyes vague from sleep. Warm lay still, and watched as Morris's focus sharpened and he took in their situation. First, his brow furrowed deeper; then he drew a breath, blinking in the beam of sunlight that reached his face through the trees; and then the muscles of his arm under Warm's hand tensed and flexed, like he was torn between withdrawing or pulling Warm closer. 

Morris settled for removing his arm, but he did not roll away to get up. “Have I kept you here long?” 

“I don't know,” Warm answered, honestly. “I haven’t been watching the time.” The chill air was slowly stealing away the lingering warmth of Morris’s arm, even through the layers and layers of woolen blankets and his own clothing, and he shivered. 

“It’s cold,” Morris muttered. 

“You are very observant this morning,” Warm teased him. “I’ll have the fire going again in a minute, and tea.” He began to push himself up to sitting, bracing for the moment the blankets fell away. 

Morris was still looking at him, and for a heartbeat, Warm thought Morris might reach out and coax him back into the blankets. But Morris nodded, and did not touch him, and instead turned over, putting his back to Warm entirely to find his boots and get up. 

Breakfast was oddly quiet, even with the constant susurrus of the stream. Morris did not sit by the fire to eat with Warm; he could not seem to keep still, and the lines creasing his forehead kept deepening. After he finished brushing his teeth—down by the water, though he hadn’t cared if Warm saw him messily covered in foam before—he went back and forth between his horse and the fire with his mug in one hand and a biscuit held in his teeth, to put up his gear. He would not look at Warm at all. 

It was a little like watching the development of a storm cloud as it came over the hills, and Warm began to worry. He had not thought Morris the brooding type, nor the sort of man who fumed over the smallest perceived slight, gathering up more and more imagined offenses until they came to a head. 

He got to his feet the next time Morris came to the fire to refill his tea, and caught at his arm before Morris could walk off again. “Did I do something to upset you?” 

Morris froze, and slowly turned his head to meet Warm’s gaze. His face was blank; carefully and deliberately so, Warm thought, because he had smiled very readily, before. 

“I thought we weren’t in a rush,” Warm said. He bit his lip. “I—I understand, if you’ve had a change of heart and want to go on and meet your friends—”

“No,” Morris said, softly. His mouth worked under his beard. “No, I haven’t changed my mind.” He looked down at Warm’s hand on his sleeve. “You’ve done nothing to upset me.” 

“You’re certain?” Warm said. “I know I’m not what you’re accustomed to, and that the way I do things is unusual—”

Morris’s head came up, sharply. “Hermann,” he said, sounding pained. “It is not—I—” He sighed. “I apologize for my foul mood. Yes, I had business on my mind, but it is not pressing, and I—we could have stayed abed a while longer this morning, instead of coming out into this damned chilly air.” 

“Ah,” Warm murmured. He had begun to rub his fingers and thumb along Morris’s arm, although he could not have said which of them he was attempting to reassure by it. “Well, come sit by the fire, then, and warm up before we set out—or was that what you were trying to do, stomping to and fro?” 

Morris’s face was clearing, steadily, and he offered Warm a faint smile. “It must have been.” He allowed Warm to tug him down to sit beside the fire; they were sitting close together on the ground, their knees touching. Morris hunched over his mug of tea, wearily, and cupped both his hands around it. 

“What you want is a hot bath,” Warm said, knowingly, and with a touch of wistfulness. 

“I half expected to find _you_ soaking in the creek already,” Morris said. “Surely, with all your knowledge, you must have contrived a way to heat it?”

“If only. I thought I’d go in later, actually, if time permits?”

“I think we can spare some hours for that.” Morris nudged Warm with his shoulder. “What would you have us do, in the meantime?” 

“If I had a pair of field glasses, I might look for—” Warm began, earnestly, and then he remembered himself, and what he was to Morris, and therefore what Morris must mean; he got to his knees and reached over for Morris’s belt—

Morris caught his hand. “What would you look for?” 

Warm looked down into Morris’s eyes. The lines that had earlier telegraphed his bad temper and irritation had eased, and Warm thought Morris was sincerely interested in the answer. But he had not released his hand, and Warm’s heart beat a little faster, foolishly; Morris simply was waiting to decide whether to go along with his idea, or pull him down to engage him as expected, if it was too laughable.

“Birds.” The corner of Warm’s mouth quirked up. “I was—I _am_ an indifferent bird watcher, but there must be something to the practice, if the poets and sages devoted lines to it.” 

“‘I know something akin to the migratory instinct of birds affects both nations and individuals from time to time,’” Morris said. He smiled up at Warm’s quizzically raised eyebrow. “Thoreau, though I’m sure I have badly misquoted him. But as it turns out, I have a pair of field glasses which you may borrow, if you like.” 

Warm was only too delighted to do so. They spent the morning sitting on the rocks, passing the field glasses back and forth. Morris had a keen eye, and tried to point out half a dozen specks in the trees to Warm before they flitted away, to little effect. Neither Warm nor Morris truly knew what they were about, of course, and there were far too many small brown birds to distinguish from each other. Warm kept his eye on Morris when it was not his turn with the field glasses, happy to ramble on making up increasingly absurd species names for all the birds they did not know, if it made Morris laugh. 

Sometime in the afternoon, Warm handed the field glasses back to Morris with a sheepish grin, saying, “I told you I was a chemist,” and stood up to stretch. His contented feeling had returned; the sun warmed his face, and the creek below them was invitingly dark and deep green. He dropped his hat on the rock and pried off his boots one at a time, using Morris’s shoulder for balance. 

“Going in?” Morris asked. 

“Yes, but I have left my soap and towel.” Warm frowned at the realization, and pulled one of his suspenders back up. 

“Go ahead, I’ll get them,” Morris said, waving him on. Warm told him where the soap was in his bag, and then he shed the rest of his clothing and jumped off the rock into the deepest part of the creek. 

He came up with a gasp. It was colder than when he had waded yesterday, but he thought he would grow accustomed to it, and anyway there was always the fire to return to, or Morris’s arms, if Morris wanted. Warm glanced back towards camp and did not see Morris coming to the water, which was all right; he swam across the creek a short distance to get his blood flowing, and then up around to the waterfall and back. 

Morris had returned, and was standing on the rocks looking skeptically down at the water, though he had taken off his boots and was unbuttoning his shirt. “How cold is it?” he called, as Warm drifted over. 

“I don’t have a thermometer.” Warm raised his hands above the water in a shrug. “My soap?” 

Morris tossed what remained of the bar to him; Warm caught it one-handed and then watched with amusement as Morris meticulously folded all of his clothing before stepping to the edge of the rock, his brow furrowing again. “Hermann, honestly—how cold is it?” 

“It isn’t bad.” Warm tipped over onto his back and smiled into the sunlight. 

“All right,” Morris said, and jumped. There was an astonished yelp as he hit the water with a splash and went under—Warm couldn’t help a small snort of laughter—and then nothing.

Warm’s breath caught. “Morris?” He had checked the depth of the pool before he’d leapt in, and picked a safe place for his plunge, but Morris hadn’t looked; he had simply trusted that Warm wouldn’t lead him astray— _“John?”_

His heart beat like a bird’s wings in his chest. Warm took a deep breath and held it, readying himself to dive in and search, and a hand wrapped around his ankle and yanked him under. 

Warm twisted and turned in a flurry of bubbles, grabbing at Morris with hands slippery with soap. He broke the surface, shaking droplets from his hair and spluttering in indignation—Morris laughed and began to swim away. Warm grinned, relief making him giddy, and sent up a billowing wave as he lunged after; then they were wrestling, trying to drag each other down into the depths of the creek. He could not stop laughing between dunkings, and as Morris seized him again, and held him. 

His toes barely brushed the rocky bottom of the creek bed. Morris held him up from behind, his arm across Warm’s chest in nearly the same fashion it had when they had first awoken. But now Morris was not letting go, and Warm felt Morris’s cock pressing against him, urgently. 

“I have lost my soap,” Warm said, inanely, between panting breaths. 

“Use mine. I will buy you more when we reach town.” Morris’s voice had roughened from gulping water during Warm’s successful attempts at submerging him. Warm tilted his head back against Morris’s shoulder, expecting to feel Morris sliding between his thighs as he had before, or Morris’s hand on his own hardening cock. Instead, Morris went over on his back, bringing Warm with him. 

“I’m hardly drowning,” Warm pointed out, amused, as Morris pulled him along, but he did not mind. It was pleasant to feel how strong Morris was, the way his muscles moved in the water. 

Morris brought him back to the tilted stone slabs where their clothes lay in the sun, and Warm was puzzled when Morris hauled himself out and scrambled up onto the rocks, leaving him standing in the shallows below. “Wait a moment,” Morris said, as Warm opened his mouth to ask what he was doing; he was going through his own clothes, and retrieving an item he had pocketed. 

He climbed back down to Warm and held out the tin of grease, a little shyly. “I thought, maybe—if you wanted to try again—”

Warm blinked at him. 

“ _I_ would try to make it better for you,” Morris added, quickly. Beneath his beard, his pale face was rapidly suffusing with color. 

“I have no doubt of that,” Warm said, and nodded his assent. Heat was spreading throughout his body even though he was fully exposed to the air. Morris opened the tin and smeared the grease onto his fingers; he could not quite meet Warm’s eyes at first, nuzzling at Warm’s neck as he pressed a finger into him. Warm sighed and slid his arms around Morris’s neck in return, adjusting to the intrusion, and Morris ran his other hand over Warm’s bare back in a caress, gentler than when he had rubbed the horse liniment in. 

“All right?” Morris murmured, adding a second finger and working him open—Warm moaned softly, and Morris lifted his head in anticipation of an answer. 

Warm nodded again. “I like the way you look at me,” he said, the admission falling unexpectedly from his lips. 

Morris smiled, and bent his head to Warm’s neck, his beard scraping softly over his skin. “How do I look at you?” 

“Like you want to understand,” Warm said. He gasped as Morris’s fingers found a spot within him that no one else ever had, sending a shiver rippling over him. “Morris—”

“I heard you call me John, when you thought I had drowned,” Morris said, lightly. He withdrew his fingers and nudged Warm to turn around. 

Warm braced himself on the boulder, willing himself to relax as Morris’s cock entered him, slick and solid. Morris was being extraordinarily cautious, and it did not hurt nearly as much as their first fumbling try together. “John,” Warm echoed, his voice catching on a whimper; Morris stilled, and Warm pushed back against him as reassurance that he was all right, ignoring another faint twinge of pain as he impaled himself further onto Morris’s cock. 

“ _God,_ you’re so—” Morris choked out, and thrust into him, helplessly. 

Warm clutched at the rock so he would not be dashed upon it in Morris’s fervor. Morris groaned and leaned over him, wrapping his arm around Warm’s chest in the same fashion as before; Warm could feel Morris’s thighs trembling with the effort to keep a steady pace and the gulping ragged breaths he took with every thrust, but those dulled in comparison to the sensation of Morris’s cock pressing deeper into him, setting his nerves alight. He arched his back, every muscle tensing, and Morris gripped Warm tighter, the rhythm of his hips beginning to stutter erratically. 

But Morris skimmed his other hand over Warm’s belly and down to Warm’s cock just as he came, as if he did not want to forget what he had promised, and stroked him, and Warm spilled over Morris’s hand with a cry. 

Morris straightened up behind him and withdrew, carefully, and Warm rested his forehead against the cool stone for a moment. “Was that—” Morris started, uncertainly, and Warm felt the impression of a hand on his shoulder. 

He turned. Morris’s blue eyes were hazy from pleasure, but his forehead was etched with concern. “Yes, John,” Warm said, and smiled, another rush of feeling overtaking him, and he drew Morris down so that he could kiss his poor furrowed brow. 

Morris sighed, and went limp against him, holding onto Warm to remain upright. “Good.” 

They cleaned up in the creek, taking turns with Morris’s bar of soap; it was much finer than Warm’s had been, and smelled strongly of lavender. While Warm washed, Morris drifted out a short distance into the deeper part of the pool, contorting strangely in the water, and then Warm laughed as the realization came to him: Morris was trying to pick up rocks from the creek bed with his toes and dropping them before he could secure them in his hands. 

“I'm sure you'll get the hang of it,” Warm called, and ducked as Morris splashed him before swimming back over. 

“Suppose I had found a gold nugget,” Morris said, balancing on his hands in the shallow water in the manner of a gymnast on a beam, extending his legs out behind him. “What would you do with it?” 

“It would be yours, John, if you found it.” Warm rinsed water over his face and wiped droplets out of his mustache with the back of his hand. He ached, but only a very little, and Morris seemed in no hurry to ride on, now. 

“Then suppose I gave it to you, or that you took it as a portent and staked your claim here,” Morris said. “You must have a plan for how you would spend the gold?”

Warm tossed the soap up onto the rocks so as not to lose it, and then pushed off the shore to float beside Morris. “You quoted Thoreau, earlier,” he said. “Are you familiar with his friend, the man he called the ‘philosopher?’” 

“Not as such, apparently,” Morris admitted. He sculled his arms back and forth in the water. 

“The man is called Alcott,” Warm said. “Some years ago he built a new society, one where all sorts of people might live as equals, apart from the world, so they might devote themselves to improvement, following the ideals of Transcendentalism—a utopia. He named it Fruitlands.” 

Morris shook his head when Warm glanced at him, indicating he was not familiar with the place, but that was all right. Warm went on, “I will build a place like that, only in nicer climes, so we don’t suffer the snow or harsh weather for farming. That’s why Fruitlands failed, I think, and also because the founders were too restrictive in their beliefs. They didn't work towards true understanding of a _science_ which would help everyone. My phalanstery society wouldn't cut people off from the world to make them ‘pure;’ we _live_ in the world. We are, all of us, connected to each—” 

Warm stopped. Morris had closed his eyes, as if he couldn't bear to hear more. “John?” 

“It sounds very well,” Morris said, softly. He opened his eyes, and there was a different cast to them than Warm had yet observed; it was if Morris were not really seeing him in the creek, but imagining himself elsewhere, in another place and time. “You would undertake this endeavor on your own?”

“Oh, no,” Warm said, with a small laugh. “There are people on their way from the East, and from Europe. After I raise enough capital from my prospecting, I'll join them in Texas.” He paused; the invitation was on his lips, but he had never inquired about the manner of Morris's business, and it was too presumptuous of their—friendship. 

“Texas,” Morris repeated, and he smiled, his eyes catching the sunlight and dazzling Warm for an instant. “Then I had better give you this, to begin with—” and he brought up a handful of stones from beneath the water that he had managed to collect with his toes. 

Warm splashed him and said, to cover the sting he felt at the mockery, however gentle it might have been, “I’m not looking to start a rock collection, John.” 

Morris nodded, affecting seriousness, and studied the assortment of stones in his palm. “They are just river rocks,” he agreed. “Except this one is unusual.” He selected one of the rocks and held it up for Warm's assessment: it was not much bigger than the circle of his thumb and forefinger, oblong and smooth in the way of water-worn pebbles, but there was a good-sized hole in it. 

“How did that happen?” Morris asked. “It is as if someone has taken a drill to it.” He put it to his eye like it was a hand lens, and Warm grinned to see Morris squinting at him through it. 

“Time has worn it down, probably,” Warm said. “Something sharpened to a point, pressed against that spot as the creek ran over. I don't really know.” 

Morris took the stone down from his eye, and looked at it in his hand again. “It may not be the gold you seek,” he said, but he offered it to Warm.

“I shall treasure it always,” Warm said, dryly, and curled his fingers around the stone. They returned to the rock slab where their clothes were, wonderfully warm after hours in the sun, and dressed. 

Warm was a bit surprised at the lethargy he felt—he could not stop yawning. He had not exerted himself over much, except for swimming, but there was something soothing about the creek as it rippled, the sunlight through the trees casting them in amber. That they had delayed so long in order to allow him a swim was slightly troubling; it was now quite late in the day, and he did not think they would reach Louse Creek, let alone Jacksonville, by nightfall. 

Still, he perched on the rock to get his boots on, gazing out over the lovely creek wistfully. But Morris looked down and said, with a thoughtful note in his voice, “If we left now, we would find ourselves struggling through the mountains in the dark. We may as well en—remain camped here another night, Hermann, if you like.”

Warm glanced up at him, surprised and pleased that Morris wanted to prolong their association. “I would like that very much,” he replied, and made sure that he did not misplace the tin of grease. 

It was fine, then, to laze about. Warm sat by the fire with his journal as the sky darkened, and redrew the plans for how he would dam a creek similar to the one rushing past, once he had staked his claim in California. He could not help adding details of the scene: trees, though the precise foliage they would bear was unknown to him; his camp, with a tent and casks of his formula; the horses, of course, and—

Warm paused, studying the sketch he had made of a man standing at the water's edge. Judging by the rough curved lines of the hat, he had not drawn himself. 

“You are an artist as well?” Morris said, returning to the campfire with his saddle bag slung over his shoulder. He leaned over Warm to look at the sketch, and Warm saw the shape of his mouth soften under his beard. “I dare say you are shorter than that, though.” 

“A matter of perspective, perhaps.” Warm tilted his head up to smile at Morris, letting his mistaken impression pass. He pointed the stub of his pencil at Morris’s bag inquiringly. “Dinner?”

“Yes,” Morris said, dropping his bag on the ground with a thump and sitting down beside him. “Did you want anything from your bag? I am, of course, more than happy to share again.” He produced a tin, proceeded to pry it open with his knife, and held it and a fork out to Warm. 

Warm set his journal aside and took the tin from him with a grateful nod. He looked askance at its contents for a second, and then speared one on his fork and ate it. The hesitation had been very brief, or so Warm thought, but Morris said, a hint of a smile playing about his lips, “I should think _you_ would not be concerned about their reputation as an aphrodisiac—” 

Warm snorted and shook his head. “A scientifically unproven myth.” 

“You dislike oysters, then?” 

Warm looked across at him. “When I was growing up, there was some debate about whether creatures of the sea that weren't fish should be forbidden to eat.” The corner of his mouth twitched up, wryly. “I wasn't completely resolved on the issue for myself until I was starving on the trail.” 

Morris's eyes widened. “I see.” He watched Warm slurp the oysters off his fork, and then he said, slowly, “I hope I have not given you other cause for offense—” 

“Oh, not at all, John.” Warm waved the fork in the air. “The religious habits of my childhood were important to my family, but I prefer science and spirituality to the dictates of tradition.” 

Morris leaned towards him, mock-conspiratorially. “Hermann, are you an atheist?”

Warm shrugged. He put another oyster in his mouth and said around it, “Many of the people who came out this way on the trail found comfort in their faith, when their children died and their oxen drowned.” 

“But not you.”

Warm handed the fork and tin back to Morris. “I put my faith in the people themselves,” he said. “There were some who—who took advantage, but for the most part I was right to trust in their basic human kindness.” He stretched his leg out and gently tapped Morris’s shin with the toe of his boot. “Like you.” 

Morris made a face, inexplicably. “I could not be such an optimist as yourself, if I had shared your experiences, Hermann.” 

“You do not agree that people are, at heart—”

“ _Capable_ of good,” Morris allowed. He broke off a piece of bread and handed it over. It was beginning to turn stale, but Warm washed it down with some tea, frowning at the pained expression in Morris’s eyes. “But I am not what you think—”

Warm rose up on his knee and kissed him. Morris’s mouth opened under his in surprise, and he tasted the brine of the oysters on Morris’s tongue. He released Morris and said, “On the contrary, you’ve been rather more kind than I had dared hope.” As Morris looked down at where his hand had gone to Warm’s hip, his hair fell into his face, and that or some emotion cast a shadow there that Warm could not countenance, so he kissed him again. 

Morris made a soft sound, almost a sob, and then he bore Warm down onto the ground, kissing him back with strange new ferocity, his hands making short work of Warm’s suspenders and pants. Warm clutched at Morris’s broad shoulders helplessly as Morris fumbled his own pants open, trying to stutter out between kisses that the grease was in his pocket. But of course Morris was not going to force him; he pressed Warm into the dirt and took both their cocks in his hand, stroking them together as Warm writhed and moaned beneath him. It was over in an instant, faster than Warm expected after Morris had already taken him once today, or—

“I think I may have underestimated the aphrodisiac properties of oysters,” Warm panted, as Morris rolled off of him. 

Morris chuckled faintly. “That must be it.” 

There was not much left to finish of dinner, which was just as well; after that final exertion of the day, Warm wanted nothing more than to nestle into Morris’s blankets by the fire and sleep. Morris seemed of the same mind, forgoing his cigar entirely to crawl in beside him. 

“Good night, John,” Warm murmured, nuzzling fondly against Morris’s shoulder. 

“Good night,” Morris replied. He hesitated, and then he put his arm over Warm, as he had before, and it was held thus both comfortably and securely, that Warm drifted off to sleep. 

Morris was not in a sour mood the next morning, for which Warm was deeply glad. He would have been sorry to pass their last day together in a state of mutual unhappiness. They pressed on to Louse Creek, a town which was in the early stages of treading a muddy road into the ground and had absolutely nothing whatsoever to recommend it: “Not a single laundry to be had,” Morris observed, as they rode through, and Warm snickered.

Jacksonville, which they reached in late afternoon, was plainly benefiting from the recent discovery of gold in a creek nearby. The saloons were crammed full of miners, even at such an early hour; the general store clerk looked harried, Warm thought, when they came in searching for soap, and the shelves were in a constant state of being restocked; and the nightly rate at the boarding house was _absurd._

Morris was still able to rent them separate rooms. Warm was again sincerely appreciative of his largesse, though he would not have minded in the least if they’d had to share. As he laid aside his coat and vest and began to unpack his few belongings by lamplight, he spent some minutes contemplating how best to demonstrate his gratitude before they parted ways. He thought perhaps he might go to Morris’s room in the morning, to—

There was a knock on the door, and Warm turned. Morris stood in the doorway, still fully dressed. His eyes were downcast, and misery hung heavily about him. 

In his dismay, Warm's heart missed a beat, and he struggled to keep his voice light. “Have you already come to say goodbye?” 

Morris shook his head. “Hermann, I have a confession I must make,” he said, with some difficulty. He brought his hand around from behind his back with an odd jangling sound, and held his palms out flat to display a pair of thick sturdy handcuffs upon them. 

Warm stared at them, and then at Morris. He was frozen to the spot, and his mind reeled with a sudden rush of fear. He had never asked Morris's business—

“I have been deceiving you from the beginning,” Morris said, and it was like a blow; Warm shut his eyes, unable to catch his breath. “The Commodore contracted me to search you out. He said you had stolen from him, and I—I was to find you, and hold you here in Jacksonville as my prisoner until such time as—as more of the Commodore's men could arrive.” 

“To kill me,” Warm whispered, and opened his eyes. He could not think of anything except the prospect of fleeing; looking at Morris, which not so long ago had evinced in him a soft sense of conviviality, was now nearly painful. 

Morris's gaze was fixed on the handcuffs. He nodded. 

“No—to first retrieve what I have supposedly _stolen_ , and then kill me, I think.” Warm bit his lip. The icy dread that had seized him at the sight of Morris’s handcuffs was dissipating, and he thought he could move again, but Morris was still blocking the doorway, cutting him off from any chance of departing that way. He glanced at the window, though he knew that Morris was quick, and strong, and even if he managed to throw up the sash and climb out— 

“You are _not_ a criminal,” Morris burst out. “You are a good man, I know that, and— _Hermann,_ I swear to God I—I _never_ meant to make a whore of you.”

Anger flamed hot into Warm’s face, burning his fear away between one heartbeat and the next, and he gripped the bedpost to stop his hand trembling. He had been such a fool to assume—to go on associating so closely, as if they were _friends._

Morris’s continued presence was intolerable, if he was to escape. But Warm could not fathom how he would rid himself of Morris; the man could overpower him in a flash.

The thought crossed his mind that at least Morris had chosen to confess the truth, although that, too, was scorched away in his anger and humiliation: Morris had _let_ him think—had accepted his advances at every opportunity—

—which Warm realized he could turn to his advantage, now. He knew Morris’s habits, and it would be as simple as—

Warm forced a semblance of a smile onto his face, reached out to take the handcuffs from Morris’s hands, and drew him into the room. “John, I owe you a great deal,” he said, hearing his voice quaver and hoping Morris would take it for passion, instead of fury. He reached up to unbutton Morris’s vest like he had their first time; it was a little awkward, with the handcuffs dangling loosely from one hand, but he managed it, and slid Morris’s vest and shirt together from his shoulders. 

“Hermann,” Morris said, weakly, as Warm pushed him gently backwards onto the bed. The stiff mattress gave a little under Morris’s weight. 

Warm dropped the handcuffs on the nightstand carelessly, and then he sank to his knees in front of Morris, his fingers working Morris’s belt and holsters free. “I can never hope to repay you in full,” he murmured, gazing up through his eyelashes.

“Please, _listen,_ ” Morris protested, as Warm tugged his pants off and let them fall in a heap on the floor atop his guns, and then he arched up with a gasp as Warm wrapped a hand around his cock. “You don’t have to do— _fuck—I—”_ He broke off and clutched at the quilt on the bed as Warm took his cock into his mouth. 

Warm was careful with his teeth; he did not want to give Morris any sign of his true feelings. Morris groaned and struggled to get more words out, but Warm inched forward, taking him further into his throat, and all Morris could do was seize at his shoulder desperately, panting inarticulately. Warm almost wanted him to be rough, to take his pleasure with none of the mercy he had shown on every other occasion; it would have been easier than this mockery of tenderness. 

As it was, Morris was spilling down his throat scant moments later. Warm thought, rather balefully, that he had learned his inadvertent trade quite well, and pulled off only when he was certain Morris was completely spent. 

“ _Hermann,”_ Morris breathed, and his hand brushed Warm’s hair as he folded onto the bed, his eyelids drooping. 

Warm knelt by the bed a minute more, waiting for Morris’s breathing to ease, his animosity returning and gathering about him like a storm. It was strange that he could feel in such a rage, and yet Morris could drowse on like he did, utterly unawares. 

He looked over at the heap of clothing on the floor, and tugged Morris’s vest to him to investigate the pockets. Something inside made a faint clinking sound; Warm found Morris's watch, first, and matches, and in the other pocket he searched out the keys to the handcuffs that were all he had use for. 

There was not much time before Morris roused. Warm stood, delicately lifted the handcuffs from the nightstand so they would not rattle and clank, and unlocked them. 

Then he clasped one end of the handcuffs around the middle of the bedpost, and the other around Morris's left wrist. To his surprise, Morris did not stir at his touch, nor the sensation of cold metal against his skin, and Warm was relieved, for that meant he had time to organize his escape instead of rushing away. 

Warm repacked his meager belongings, and then he collected Morris’s clothes and piled them on the washbasin stand, with his pocket watch on top. In a fit of pettiness, he picked up the pitcher and debated pouring water on them, but it would do no good; it was not as if Morris had to wait for his only clothes to dry, after all. 

He set the pitcher back down quietly and looked to Morris’s other items. Warm was not a _thief_ , but there were practical steps to be taken to ensure his future, things that he could focus on instead of his anger and a bewildering grief that sought to rise up and choke him. 

They had never been friends, nor even the verge of true friendship. Morris’s gestures of kindness—the meals they had shared, the gentleness with which he had touched Warm, even the purchase of the horse—Warm let out a shuddering breath, as comprehension dawned on him, painfully. The purchase of the horse had safeguarded Warm to Morris’s side simply that his _prey_ would not bolt. 

He was buckling one of the holsters at his hip when the sound of the handcuffs rattling against the bedpost alerted him that Morris was awake. 

“Hermann?” Morris asked. 

Warm glanced into the mirror at Morris's reflection, and held up the keys to the handcuffs. “I will put these for you, here,” he said, flatly, and dropped them into the washbasin. The keys rang on the ceramic bowl like harsh bells. “I’m taking your gun—”

Morris abruptly jerked against the handcuffs again, and the entire bed scraped roughly along the floor. Warm flinched, but he went on. “Only one, and some ammunition, Morris, I won’t leave you completely defenseless if the Commodore's men arrive and are angry that I've escaped.” He carried a chair into the middle of the room and set Morris’s extra pistol on it. 

“Don’t do this,” Morris said, softly, and there was a current running through his voice that Warm could not bear to hear. 

“Thank you for the horse, and your— _company_ these past few days.” Warm looked up at Morris; his face was white, and his eyes were wild and dark as the depths of the creek, and Warm felt an urge to go to him, to forgive the lie—but Morris flung himself off the bed and lunged for the chair, dragging the bed another inch forward, and he took a reflexive step back in alarm. 

“Hermann, don’t be a fool,” Morris snapped, straining in vain at the handcuffs. “I can’t promise that I can hold them off—you’ll be alone—”

“I was alone before,” Warm said. He was shaking, unaccountably; he concealed it by donning his coat and collecting his hat and bag. He went to the door and opened it, and stood there with his hand on the knob, powerless to prevent himself from taking one last glimpse of Morris half-sprawled on the floor. “Goodbye, John. I wish you weren't such a coward.”

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Morris in Jacksonville, next. 
> 
> Thanks to morag for the beta and the research assistance and patient handholding while I attempted to write more smut over the past month than I have during the vast majority of my fanfic writing life. XD
> 
> <3


	4. jacksonville

Morris thrashed against his bonds and shouted after Warm as the door shut and locked, _incensed_ at the sheer _hypocrisy_ of naming _him_ a coward, when Warm had played such a spineless trick—when _Warm_ had pretended to be—

No, Morris thought, when he drew breath to fuel his anger. They had never been friends. 

He had been gulled by a cunningthief, who had thought Morris an easy, generous mark, and in taking _numerous_ liberties with Morris’s person, had won himself a measure of _trust_ , and _taken advantage—_

But even as Morris jerked at the handcuffs again and bellowed Warm’s name, he knew that to be a lie, and there was no convincing himself otherwise. Not when Warm could have absconded with _everything_ , and certainly not when the light in Warm’s eyes had gone out at the sight of the accursed handcuffs, as if a fire had been smothered instantly to ash. The criminal Morris had once thought he pursued would not have been able to feign such a palpable pain at the evidence of Morris’s betrayal. 

He ceased shouting once more, panting and trembling with what could only be the effects of physical exertion, and reached up with his right hand to stop the handcuffs rattling against the bedpost. It seemed impossible that the boarding-house clerk would ignore such an outburst, and surely, if Morris could quiet his frenetic pulse, he would hear the man ascending the stairs to free him. 

It was too much to hope that Warm might turn back. 

But there was no light tread on the stairs, no creak of the floorboards indicating that a more timid man than Warm crept in the hall, and Morris knit his brow and considered that Warm might have bribed the clerk to keep away from their rooms. That was what he would have done, once the Sisters brothers arrived, to prevent the Jacksonville sheriff from interfering with their business; where the Commodore’s name was not well known enough to strike fear into men’s hearts, the expenditure of a few dollars would have bought their continued safety. 

Morris shivered, and telling himself it was from being as unclothed as he was, drew the quilt sliding from the bed to cover his nakedness. He leaned his head back against the solid wood frame of the bed and tried to regain some measure of composure, though it was quite difficult. 

The possibility that Warm would flee outright had not crossed his mind. It had been exceedingly foolish, Morris admitted to himself, to have thought that Warm would be genuinely grateful for his honesty. That Warm would be angry had been without question; he could have borne Warm lashing out and striking him far better than the anguish that had engulfed Warm's person. Then the moment might have passed, and Morris would have been able to _explain_ , and apologize properly, and then they could have gone on to—

Morris stilled. 

He _had not apologized._

Morris could not account for it, except that from the moment he had encountered Warm in Wolf Creek, he had been led continuously astray from every purpose he set. At the waterfall, he had tried to determine how Warm had victimized the Commodore, and came away charmed by Warm’s utopian ideals; he had tried to distance himself from Warm, and had wound up only _more_ intimate with him. And, as Morris forced himself to revisit the moment of his confession in his mind, he had _tried_ to say something that would wipe the wretched, hurt look from Warm’s face, and at the time, he had thought himself _successful,_ if Warm was willing to—because Warm had—

He had wronged Warm terribly, and it was not proper to think of Warm gazing up at him from the floor through his eyelashes, or to recall the sensation of Warm’s hands on his thighs, Warm’s mouth on his cock. 

His stomach turned. 

Morris thought that he had done good work in the service of the Commodore; he had never been derelict in his duty, and also he had remained scrupulously above tasks that required killing. But in confessing his assignment to Warm, in _failing_ to apologize for the deceit he had perpetuated, there was little chance that Warm saw him as anything better than the man, or men, who had debased him. 

He could not let that perception stand. He knew himself to be— _capable_ of good, as he had said to Warm around the fire, before Warm had kissed him, and it pained him to think of Warm going off with his vision of mankind sullied by Morris’s treachery. Warm stealing his gun had been a measure of that, though Morris deemed it a reasonable precaution; there were worse men than he on the trail, and Warm was _alone_ , now. 

_That_ thought chilled Morris to the bone, and he fetched the quilt up from where it had fallen into his lap, turning his attention to the handcuffs and bedpost as further dire possibilities began to unsettle him. He had not heard many reports of Indian attacks as of late, and anyway Morris felt Warm might have better luck with them, not being a White man, but bandits might lay off plotting against the more well-armed stagecoaches for the ease of taking down a lone traveler. 

Another shudder went through Morris, but he reassured himself that Warm could not have traveled very far yet, and if he contrived to break free, he was certain he could catch up to Warm by morning. Nothing within reach would allow him escape, however, and so Morris got awkwardly to his feet, to ascertain how he might drag the bed across the room and reach the keys Warm had left behind in the washbasin. 

It did not seem an impossible proposition; the room was small, and the bed, though it was constructed of a solid hardwood, could not be that difficult to maneuver—except it _was_ , with his left hand trapped and just able to grasp the bedpost. And Morris was perhaps overly concerned with the arrangement of the quilt, fearing that the boarding-house clerk _might_ venture upstairs at any moment to find out what had been the matter. As it was, even with his not inconsiderable strength, Morris only managed to drag the bed mere inches at a time, before his grip on either the bedpost or the quilt gave way and he had to stop and adjust, panting and rubbing his left hand where it was going numb. 

Without his pocket watch—it lay amidst the pile of his clothing on the washbasin stand, Morris could see its chain glinting faintly—he could not determine how long it took to haul the bed even halfway across the room, close enough to the chair upon which Warm had placed his gun. His left arm was sore from being forced into unnatural angles, his back ached, and he was exhausted and sweating from exertion. Still, it was a relief to heft the weight of his gun in his hand, and although he did not really think the Sisters brothers would have lethal orders from the Commodore in case of his failure, Morris had positioned the bed so it stood between him and the door, in case they burst in while he caught his breath. 

Warm had drawn the curtains aside, and even sitting on the floor, Morris could see the glow of people’s lamplights and campfires radiating upwards into the sky, and above that, stars. He sighed; he had forgotten to ask Warm how to calculate the time by their movements. He resolved to get on his feet and continue his passage across the room once the brightest star crossed the windowpane and reached the edge of the curtain. 

His mind went back unerringly to Warm. He had acted very deliberately, at the last, and Morris hoped he was taking that same care out on the trail, not urging his horse faster and risking both their necks. Warm was a decent rider, but if his horse faltered in the dark, or was set upon by predators, or simply spooked and threw him—

Morris gritted his teeth and sought the anger he had first felt when Warm had called him a coward and _fled_ ; that was easier to bear than the thoughts of Warm lying unconscious and half-trampled in the dirt, or captured by bandits who had already created their own lawless societies and cared nothing for Warm’s dreams. But the heat of Morris’s rage had vanished with his vigor, leaving him cold and spent on the floor. 

He pulled the quilt more tightly about him, noting that the star he had been tracking seemed not to have moved at all. He could close his eyes for a moment and rest; Warm would have to do the same, and Morris could catch up to him then. 

The sun shining in through the window roused him, _hours_ later—or _no_ , it had been the sound of footsteps in the hall, and someone was rattling the key in the lock. Morris’s pulse quickened, and he came around on his knees to point his pistol at the door, bracing himself on the headboard. A moment’s wild hope surged in his heart that perhaps Warm had returned—

—but the door flung open, and it was only Charlie Sisters behind it, aiming a gun at what would have been head height, if Morris had been standing. He looked well in the morning sunlight, his eyes clear with sobriety rather than vague in drunkenness, and his gun hand, as always, did not tremble. 

Charlie promptly dropped his gaze to where Morris knelt on the floor behind the bed, and a horrible grin spread slowly across his face as he took in the handcuffs and Morris’s immodest appearance. “Hello, Morris,” he said. 

“Charlie,” Morris bit out, and set his gun down on the floor beside him. 

Charlie’s grin widened. He holstered his own gun, and crossed the room to throw the window open—jerked back with a muttered curse and then leaned out again. “ _Jesus,_ Eli, you almost shot me,” he snapped down at his brother. “Come up, you gotta see this.” 

Morris sat back on the floor, hastily resettling the quilt over his lap, and said, “Let me free. The keys are in the wash basin—”

“What’re you gonna do if I don’t, shoot me?” Charlie turned, and came over to sit on the chair the wrong way round, smirking. He reached over and tugged at the handcuffs, and Morris scowled at him. 

More footsteps pounded up the stairs, and Morris leaned his head into his trapped hand and sighed. Eli burst in—and stared. 

“What the hell happened?” 

Charlie leered. “I’m guessing our man Warm found himself a way into Morris’s good graces.”

Morris grimaced. 

“He seduced you?” Eli said, looking startled. 

“ _No,”_ Morris retorted, uncomfortably. 

“You’re _naked,_ Morris,” Charlie said, nudging a fold of the quilt with one booted toe. 

Morris glared up at him. “Let me free, dammit.” 

“I don’t know, I kinda like you brought low like this,” Charlie said. “Not every day you get to see such a fine gentleman stranded bare-assed on the floor.” 

Eli scratched his cheek and shook his head apologetically at Morris. “Keys?”

“In the washbasin,” Morris said, and then, more fervently, “Thank you,” as Eli found them and came back to unlock the handcuffs. He got to his feet, holding the quilt about his waist like he might a towel after a bath, and went over to collect his clothes and his thoughts all at once. The Sisters had arrived much sooner than he had expected, and he had not spent _any_ time contemplating how he might prevent them from carrying out their mission, too upset by Warm’s departure and his own mistakes. 

“So, Warm,” Eli said, as Morris buttoned his shirt and reached for his waistcoat. “How far ahead is he?”

Morris pressed his lips together, considering. Charlie was high in the Commodore’s esteem, but Eli was a soft touch, despite his own deadly talents, and only went along to keep Charlie from doing too much harm to himself. There was also the possibility that they, like Morris, had not known precisely what the Commodore wanted with Warm, and might be similarly perturbed at the reason. 

And if Morris was unable to sway them, and they chose to continue the pursuit without him—he looked up into the glass and saw that his gun lay on the floor where he had left it unwisely behind—at least he had given Warm a warning, and that would have to content him. 

“I cannot say.” Morris finished dressing and turned to face them, depositing his pocket watch gently into his waistcoat. “Not until I have divulged the information I now know, and heard where you stand.” 

“What are you talking about?” Charlie frowned. 

“The mission to which we have been assigned was predicated on a falsehood,” Morris said. 

Charlie rubbed his hand over his eyes. “Morris, it’s _early_ , can you talk like a normal fucking person for _once.”_

Morris tried not to let slip an exasperated sigh. “What did the Commodore tell you about why we are after Warm?”

“He stole something from the Commodore,” Eli said. “Like a lot of other foolish men.” He glanced at Charlie, but Charlie’s eyes were shifty and did not linger on either his brother’s face or Morris’s. 

“Warm is not a thief,” Morris said. “But I suspect you knew that, Charlie Sisters.” 

Charlie’s mouth hardened, and his eyes took on an unpleasant cast. “If you’re so clever, how is it you’re the one who was tied to the bed?”

Eli said, “Charlie, is there something you’ve been keeping from me?”

“Warm is an inventor,” Morris said, when Charlie did not respond. “He has created a chemical formula to detect gold, to make prospecting easier. I believe it would have been your task to extract that formula for the Commodore, once I had—once I had made him my prisoner.” 

“ _Charlie,”_ Eli said, again, and his brother threw up his hands and said, “ _Yeah,_ Eli, it’s true. The Commodore ordered me not to tell you.”

“Why not?”

Charlie looked out the window and then back again. “Because when it comes down to it, you’re just as squeamish as _Maurice_ here about some things.”

“Like torturing and killing an innocent man for his ingenuity,” Eli said, flatly; Morris thought he looked appropriately disconcerted by his brother’s omission. 

“Yeah, like that,” Charlie said. He jerked his chin up at Morris. “How’d you find out about the formula?”

Morris leaned back against the washbasin stand. “Warm told me.” 

“Just up and _told_ you, huh.” 

“Yes,” Morris said, narrowing his eyes at Charlie. He did not feel the need to confess that he had gone through Warm’s journal to verify it—which was another transgression he would have to apologize for. “More importantly, I no longer have any intention of chasing after Warm in order that he can be made to give up the formula. It was one thing, when I was sent to bring in horse thieves and murderers; it is another entirely to rob men of what they have created by their own intellect and skill.” He looked to Eli. “Do you agree?” 

Eli scratched at his cheek again; there was something odd about the shape of it. “I don’t like that you lied to me, Charlie,” he said, but he nodded to Morris. “We can say that you lost him. It’s sort of true, anyway.” 

Morris leveled his gaze upon Charlie. “And you?” 

“You said you don’t plan to go after Warm to get the formula.” 

“Yes,” Morris said, dryly. “I am glad to hear you were listening.”

Charlie tilted his head back, so that the sunlight caught the corner of his mouth curling up. “Then what _are_ you gonna go after him for?”

Morris tried and failed to keep his jaw from dropping. He had not thought Charlie attentive enough to hear the careful wording of his aims.

“Warm didn’t steal anything from the Commodore, sure,” Charlie said. “But I think _maybe_ he stole something from _you.”_ He batted his eyes and pouted his lips to kiss the air in Morris’s direction. 

Morris stared at him, almost too stunned for words. “No, it—it is not like that at all,” he said, although he winced at the feebleness of his protest, and at Eli’s expression, which had gone alarmingly _soppy_. “I—” Charlie was mistaken; he had leapt to assumptions based on his own childishly lecherous nature, and Morris was not—he was going to find Warm because—

“I am going after Warm because I have betrayed and mistreated him,” Morris said stiffly, attempting to regain some measure of dignity, though he was fairly certain Charlie would never, _ever_ forget discovering him without a stitch. “And as a _gentleman_ , it is incumbent upon me that I make amends.”

“Okay,” Charlie said, and bared his teeth in a grin. “If you say so.” 

“Maybe we should come with you,” Eli mused, and both Morris and Charlie turned to him in surprise. “What? Aren’t you curious about the formula, Charlie? Don’t you want to see if it can really find gold?” 

Charlie propped his arm up on the back of the chair and rested his chin on his hand. “Maybe we can work out a deal with Warm, so the Commodore can still be satisfied.”

“So you can get paid,” Morris said. 

“Well, of course.” Charlie shrugged. “We aren’t all prospecting geniuses.” He could not seem to stop smirking at Morris. “What d’you say, _Maurice_? We’ll come meet this Warm, and you’ll—” He swept his other hand insinuatingly across the bed—“say you’re sorry, and meanwhile me and Eli will make sure our financials are taken care of.” 

Morris said, out of reflex, “‘Eli and I,’” and Charlie snorted. But Morris did not see another way around it; suggesting they return empty-handed was out of the question. “Very well. But you must give me your word, both of you, that when we find Warm, you _will not_ harm him.” 

Eli nodded, and his face was open and kind. 

“Charlie?” Morris said. 

“You’re going to a lot of trouble for this guy,” Charlie said, and Morris eyed him, irritated. “I’m just saying.” 

“Do I have your word, or not?” 

Charlie shrugged again. “Yeah, yeah, all right. Happy now?”

Morris looked around at the two most infamous assassins in the Territory, with whom he had agreed to travel, and sighed. Twenty minutes ago, he had been naked and tied to a bed, hoping he was not about to be gunned down for losing Warm. All in all, it was possible he had never been _less_ so in his life. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Again, many thanks to morag for the beta work <3
> 
> I'm mostly on a once-a-month update schedule for this one, but will try to get the next chapter up around the time the DVD officially comes out ;)


	5. mayfield

Warm rode as far as he could before the adrenaline and fear that had spurred him into the dark wore off, and exhaustion overcame him. His horse was beginning to flag; like him, she had not gotten much of an opportunity to rest in Jacksonville, and although she was calm and remarkably sure-footed in the dark, he was certain that continuing in this fashion was not good for her hip. 

Eventually he turned her head off the trail in search of a discreet stand of trees, some jutting rocks to hide him from view and divert the wind while he slept. He had little chance of finding another town or catching up to a wagon train before daybreak, and even if Morris escaped and began hunting him in earnest, he could not possibly discover Warm so easily in the miles that now lay between them. 

Warm resolved not to think about Morris again. He was tired and angry; the unfamiliar weight of a gun rested on his hip; and he had grown accustomed to going to sleep with someone at his side, and those were the _only_ reasons why his thoughts persisted in drifting like a leaf fallen into a stream and fetching up in an eddy. 

He would _not_ think about Morris. 

Warm located a stone outcropping that could conceal him, and was large enough that his horse would be hard to spot from most angles if he could coax her into its shadow, and unwisely struck a match to make sure that they would not be sharing its shelter with any unwanted creatures. He saw nothing to alarm him, but once the match went out he could see nothing at all. 

He found his way back to his horse to loosen her saddle, and fumbled around in his bag for his blankets. A few of his belongings tumbled to the ground as he pulled the blankets free—the metallic clatter of his mug and plate, a soft thump that was probably his journal—and something struck his boot and went rolling away. 

It was not worth investigating until morning, Warm thought, even as he squinted down into the grass after the item that had fallen; it was most likely a can of peaches or some other small treat that Morris had bought him in—

Warm closed his eyes and leaned his forehead against his horse’s neck, a fretful hot feeling making him sweat and tremble where he stood. 

He had been so foolish to imagine that he had successfully escaped the Commodore’s reach. It had been practically an accident that he had even attracted the Commodore's attention in the first place—although now he wondered if it truly _had_ been an accident that he had become so drunk and spilled forth his plans to a kindly stranger, that long-ago night in Oregon City before he set out. Morris could not have been the only spy in the Commodore's employ—

He sighed, and opened his eyes again onto the darkness, sick of thinking. He dragged his blankets under the overhang of rock, and lay down on his side so that he could still look out across the valley, willing his unquiet mind silent to no avail. Overhead, the sky was endlessly clear; his gaze went unerringly to the familiar constellations positioned about Polaris, and he judged that it must be some time after midnight. 

There was something uncomfortable prodding his side, other than the gun. Warm felt about beneath him on the ground for a stick or clump of grass that would not go flat and found no such annoyances. He sat up and patted his coat pockets, expecting to discover that he had left a stub of pencil in them, or a couple of penny candies, but instead his fingers encountered an unfamiliar lump. He took it out, running his thumb over its smooth curves, and then he remembered: it was the rock Morris had given him as they swam by the waterfall, with a hole worn away in the middle. 

His fist tightened around it, his breath snatched out of his lungs in rapid shuddery pants. Warm drew his arm back to hurl the rock into the night—and could not bring himself to do it. 

It would be a reminder, Warm told himself, as he pulled his knees to his chest and huddled down into the blankets, folding his fingers tightly over the rock. It would be a reminder of how close he had come to disaster because he had wanted a _friend_.

The stars blurred, and Warm swiped angrily at his eyes. 

He did not dare to pull the blankets up over his face to go to sleep, and what little sleep he managed was constantly interrupted by the faint whickering from his horse, the whisper of wind picking up through the grass. His hand went uncertainly to the butt of the gun every time—he had thought he would be reassured by having it, but feeling the cool sleek metal only put him in mind of its mate, and how quickly it could be turned on him. 

He woke at dawn miserably chilled and sore. He got to his feet and looked about while he stretched; there was no one for miles, not even smoke from wagon trains or tribes encamped nearby. The brightening horizon stretched on and on, the vastness of it meeting a strange hollow feeling in his chest, and Warm thought that he had not truly known what it meant to be alone. 

But he remained free. Morris had not come upon him in the night, though that was no reason to stop running. 

Warm picked up the can—it _had_ been peaches—that had rolled away, doing his best to ignore that the hollow feeling was deepening into an ache. He pressed on. 

The next town on the trail, after Warm crossed into California as yet unpursued, was called Mayfield. _Everything_ belonged to Mayfield: the tannery hung with raccoon furs, the saloon, the cartwright, the general store—all of it. There was also mining to be had nearby, or so the town’s sign proclaimed, and therefore Warm decided to approach Mayfield about investing in his prospecting technique. Mayfield would likely be interested for his own sake, because Warm had yet to encounter anyone in the West who did not care about gold—and if the naming of every business in town was enough to go by, secure enough in his position that he might not be as grasping as the Commodore. 

Or so Warm hoped. His judgment had been drastically in error once already; he intended to avoid such mistakes again. 

As it was, he could not help putting his foot wrong in other ways. Asking to speak with _Mr._ Mayfield while the lady herself stood chatting at the bar was bad; stumbling over the introduction of his technique, which he had explained succinctly to Morris in the creek, was worse. At least Mayfield did him the favor of hearing out his idea, although as he went on—leaving out the specifics of his formula and his dream of building a new society, because he thought she might take offense to the latter—he could see the interest waning in her eyes. She did not believe him, and she had no reason to. Not like Morris, whose employer had predisposed him to believe, if only that he might carry out his mission 

Warm thought it was all right, after. Mayfield put him up in a room in her hotel, which was an unexpected kindness, at least until he discovered she intended for him to spend what little he had in her establishments. She personally shepherded him to a table at the saloon—he noted with a wary eye the neighboring gamblers at cards and dice, and the fact that there was a man in a coonskin cap at each—and tried to ply him with drink. 

He could not trust it, even if she only meant to loosen his grip on his purse for the sake of her gambling tables, and fell back on an old truth. “That’s very kind of you, but my faith prohibits it,” he said—and then he had to say it again, when Mayfield sent painted and powdered women wearing little more than corsets to drape themselves enticingly about him. 

Warm retired quickly to his room after that, half sick with dismay and anger as he locked the door and lit the room's sole lamp. _Morris_ should have put him off, too, instead of allowing him to assume—

He propped a chair under the doorknob, irritated that he was _still_ thinking about Morris, when he should be attending to more practical concerns like how he was going to raise enough capital to fund his venture, if he was too worried about potential investors turning on him. If he kept failing to explain his work without sounding like the kinds of con men who salted mines or dealt in useless tonics. 

He went to bed thoroughly discomfited, and shortly thereafter discovered that lying there made everything worse, not only because of the straw ticking he could feel poking him through the thin cotton bedding or the scratchiness of the blanket covering his face. It seemed wholly unlikely that he could have grown anticipatory of another presence beside him in so short a time, but the fact of the matter was—

—someone was trying the doorknob. 

Warm held his breath, a dreadful thrill running through him at the possibility that it was Morris caught up to him—and then he threw off the blanket and scrambled from the bed in a panic at the sound of low rough whispers in the hall. 

But the chair under the knob held even as the intruders, whoever they were, threw their weight at the door, rattling it and Warm’s nerves. He had gone to bed fully dressed; it was the work of moments to get his boots on and throw up the window sash. And then he hesitated for a heartbeat longer, gazing down at the slope of the roof and the ground below, but the men bent on entering his room must have assumed he wouldn't go out the window to escape and there was no one waiting beneath to capture him, Morris or otherwise. 

Warm clattered down off the roof and was hurrying to where he had tied his horse by the time they broke in, ducking into the shadows to chance a look back. None of the silhouettes in the lamplight were the size and shape of Morris. Instead, there was a furry look about their heads: Mayfield’s men, sent to rob him of his money or his formula or both. 

He gritted his teeth and flattened himself low along his horse’s neck as she galloped away, frustrated yet again at having his prospects thwarted. Perhaps he had been caught off his guard by the surprise of seeing a woman running the town, or placed too much trust in her because of her sex and situation. Either way, he should not have assumed that a woman in power would be any different than the Commodore, in seeking to amass ever more. 

He went into the forest a safe distance from the town, and tied his horse loosely to a tree. The urge to continue running was very strong with the possibility of both Morris and Mayfield on his trail, but exhaustion wore away at his mind like water over stone, and he tossed his blankets onto a bed of leaves and crawled underneath. 

It would be better, once he reached San Francisco. Even if he was being followed, he could lose his pursuers in the crowded city, and he could find kindred spirits there. The world could not be filled solely with perfidy and duplicity. Even Morris, at the end, had tried to—

Morris had tried—

Warm curled his fist around the rock Morris had given him, his nails digging sharply into his palm. His chest felt tight, and all around him the dark columns of the trees had become indistinguishable from the night sky. 

Morris had dissembled for far longer than Mayfield, and in much closer quarters. He thought there had been a few honest moments between them, but he did not know what to make of that kindness now, nor the genuine worry he had seen in Morris’s face before he fled. 

Warm saw no point in dwelling on it. He had put his faith in the wrong people time and time again. He would simply have to go on alone, until he could create his new society. 

Fortunately, that meant that besides his horse, there was no one to see him weep. 

*

Morris was heartily sick of his new traveling companions not terribly long after they departed Jacksonville. Eli, at least, allowed him space to collect his thoughts and make his observations of the trail, but Charlie kept pace and _would not stop_ grinning at him like a lunatic, as if he continued to envision the lurid scene of the morning. 

“You did fuck him, right,” Charlie said. It was not entirely a question. 

Morris stared unblinking into the sun for a moment to collect himself, and he thought his voice was impressively steady when he replied, “What does that matter?” 

“That’s suspiciously evasive,” Charlie said, delighted. “So you _did.”_

Morris groaned, and rubbed at his forehead. “I am not going to talk about this with you.”

“Aw, come on, Morris, I just wanna know if _you_ gave it to him, or if he—”

Morris drew his horse around, blood rushing to his face. He did not drop a hand to the butt of his gun, but it was a very near thing, and he knew that Eli had seen it in his expression. “Ask me _one_ more asinine, intrusive question of that nature and I _will_ knock you off your horse.”

“Let it go, Charlie.” Eli caught at Charlie’s reins and fixed him with a stern glare. “Sorry, Morris.” 

“Thank you,” Morris said, and turned his back on them. 

Behind him, Eli muttered, “Charlie, I always knew you were gonna get yourself killed, but this is the _dumbest_ way of provoking someone into doing it I've ever seen from you.”

Charlie said, too loudly, “Aren't you curious about what sort of man this Warm must be, if he's _warming_ Maurice's bed? What they got up to together?”

“What one man does with another in bed is their business,” Eli said, firmly. 

Morris imprudently assumed that would be the end of it, until they made camp that night. Charlie went off into the bushes to relieve himself, and Eli looked across the fire and said, “So—this Warm fellow of yours—”

“Did Charlie put you up to ask more _politely?_ ” Morris frowned hard at him. “He’s disgusting.” 

“No, no,” Eli said, waving his hands. “I only thought it's unusual for you to, you know, fall in with someone like this. He must be very special.”

Morris eyed him narrowly. “What do you want me to say, Eli?” 

The corner of Eli's mouth twisted. “Nothing, Morris. I just thought it was nice, that's all.”

“ _Nice?”_ Morris repeated, incredulously. “You don't know the slightest thing about what happened between us, and you think—” He bit down on the ends of his sentence and his cigar. 

“If it was Charlie naked and handcuffed to a bed in the morning, he'd either be paying a madam extra to let him loose or swearing to hunt down the double-dealing sonofabitch who did it,” Eli said, wryly. “And if it was _me_ in your situation, I wouldn't be racing ahead all the time and gazing at the horizon like that. I'd just go home.“

“I am scouting the trail,” Morris said, but Eli was shaking his head, and he was not smirking in the awful salacious manner as his brother, only watching Morris with a kind of gentle curiosity that put him in mind of no one so much as _Warm_. “I—I do not know why I am still talking to you about this.”

“Well.” Eli nodded, as if that proved his point, and said nothing more as Charlie came back and began making ready for bed.

Morris did not understand why Eli had asked until later, when he had almost dropped off into a doze and saw Eli delving furtively into his bag. He drew out a long red shawl, which he held reverently before him, stroking the nap of the weave as he might the cheek of a lover. Then he folded it carefully and pressed it to his face. Morris did not think Eli wept into it, for he had never known him to cry, but then he heard the measured breaths Eli took, as if deeply inhaling the last traces of a scent, and that confirmed his supposition that the shawl was a lady’s favor. 

He felt strangely uncomfortable for having seen it, and fell asleep pondering what Warm would have said or done, if he had happened upon such a thing by accident. It was as if he had stumbled into a sacred ritual, not meant for his or even Charlie's eyes, and it was with this knowledge that Morris held back a bit the next day to ride alongside him, considering what additional fragment of his own dignity he might sacrifice on the altar of fairness. 

Eli watched him out the corner of his eye. He was not a man Morris believed to be easily distracted, but his attention was split in three directions: Morris's proximity; Charlie, of course; and his horse, which had suffered some gruesome injury in the course of their pursuit of him and Warm and labored onward under Eli’s gentle encouragement. 

“Now did you want to say something to me?” Eli asked.

Morris rode a few paces farther without responding. There was the private moment he had witnessed, balanced against the fact that he had very few secrets left from the Sisters, and it was unwise to give Charlie any further opportunity for mockery. There was also the distinct possibility that despite Charlie’s amusement with what he apprehended of Morris’s situation, Charlie might renege on his stated agreement not to harm Warm if his duty to the Commodore took precedence when at last they met, and only Eli stood vanguard against that occurrence. 

And it would do him good to unburden himself, at least in part; he had an odd compulsion to talk about Warm, as if doing so was its own ritual that would summon him back to Morris’s side. 

“In all my travels, I have never met anyone like Warm,” Morris said, eventually, pitched for Eli’s ears alone. “The impoverished description I wrote to you—I had not spoken with him yet, and I did not know his—his mind.”

Eli’s eyebrows raised, and he drew his poor horse in close, but he said nothing, only made a small gesture for Morris to continue. 

“I admit his ideas sounded fanciful to me at the start,” Morris said. “But he is possessed of a conviction that goes beyond the drive of the common prospector, and a kind of intelligence that few men can hope to equal. And a brilliance,” he added, thoughtfully. “Not like a flame that wavers at the end of a match with a breath and burns down to the fingertips in an instant; a steady light that—” 

Morris broke off. Eli was nodding at him with a knowing expression. “That befits his name.” 

A flush rose into Morris's face as he nodded back, and then, on the same strange impulse that had led him to speak to Warm in Wolf Creek, when he could have simply gone back to his writing, he said, more quietly, “He thought I was a good man.” 

Eli looked at him for a long moment, long enough for Morris to wonder what Eli saw in him, or if their shared employment made it impossible for Eli to think the same—and why Morris even cared what _Eli_ thought. Then Eli’s gaze was drawn away by his brother, who had turned in his saddle and was waving at them with some annoyance from the top of the next ridge.

“You might be,” Eli said, and urged his horse on to see what Charlie's fuss was about. 

They rode into the town Charlie had spotted a few short hours later. Morris fully intended to take the lead to _subtly_ ask around about Warm, but Charlie interposed himself between Morris and the bar, wielding his reputation and that of the Commodore like cudgels. 

Mayfield was not an easily intimidated woman and took it in stride, apologizing smoothly for being unable to help them with their search. But Morris distrusted the calculating gleam in her eye when Charlie noticed the whores, and at dinner, his suspicions only deepened with every glass of whiskey Mayfield set before him. Something was amiss, and the carousing cacophony in the saloon was beginning to make it difficult to think clearly, much less share his concerns with Eli. And Eli's attentions were divided again, this time weighted in favor of a quiet girl sitting by herself. 

Morris finished off the last of his glass and stood. “I'm going for a walk.” 

“A walk?” Eli asked. Across the saloon, Charlie was tangled with a woman in his lap, grinning widely up at Mayfield as she poured even _more_ whiskey into his glass. His skin prickled uncomfortably; the crassness and chaos was so unlike the serenity Morris had sought on the trail with Warm. 

“I need some air,” Morris said. Eli gave him a distracted nod. His gaze was still on the girl when Morris left. 

The discordance followed Morris out into the night, and he found himself hurrying his steps to escape its assault on his eardrums, the puzzled looks the few people lingering around the saloon gave him. Hardly anyone else was about; the storefronts were of course shuttered at this hour, and lights flickered behind the curtained glass windows of people’s homes. He heard the faint scrapes and clinks of plates and cups, the raised voices of other unhappy men, and made his way towards the southern edge of town, drawn to the peaceful darkness of wilderness beyond. 

Morris wandered a fair distance out. The silence of the stars gradually eased his tension enough to think, but it was hard to lose Mayfield entirely, lit and echoing behind him. Warm could not have missed Mayfield, unless he had decided to leave the trail—Morris did not like to think _why—_ and Mayfield similarly could not have missed Warm. 

It did not make sense. 

Morris grimaced, and took a cigar and matches from his coat pocket, mulling over the reasons Mayfield might have to lie; the first and foremost was that she _had_ been concerned about Charlie’s name-dropping, and did not want to entangle herself in the Commodore’s affairs. 

The wind picked up briefly, murmuring through the grasses. 

The second reason—

Morris frowned. The wind was not the only thing moving through the grass towards the place where he stood, seemingly lost in thought. He cupped his hand around the matchbox and struck a match as if he were going to light his cigar, careful not to look down into the flame, as the footsteps came closer—spun and flicked his lit match at the man who had crept up behind him.

The man cried out and flung his hands up to protect his face—in the flash of brightness Morris was relieved to see, though he had not dared hope differently, that it was _not_ Warm but a man wearing a raccoon-fur cap—and blindly charged. Morris almost managed to step out of his way, but the man swerved and caught him with a flailing blow, and then they were down and grappling in the grass. 

It was not at all like playfully wrestling with Warm in the creek. The man—one of Mayfield’s trappers—meant to do Morris serious harm, and the possibilities that lay behind _that_ sent Morris’s thoughts spinning as they exchanged blows. Mayfield had lied about seeing Warm, that was for certain; the question now was whether they had joined forces against him, or—

He heard far-off shooting and screaming, and presumed it was probably the Sisters handling their own assailants—

—if she had somehow extracted the formula from Warm and was trying to eliminate anyone else who knew about it—

A truly outlandish hope flared to life in Morris’s chest as the man tried to put him in a far too tenuous hold: _or,_ Mayfield had captured Warm and even now held him prisoner somewhere in her town, and if Morris could escape his own predicament, he could find and free him, and be forgiven. 

He broke free of the man’s grip and threw all of his weight behind a punch. The man collapsed with a groan and did not stir. 

Morris took all of ten seconds to catch his breath—the distant gunfire had stopped—and then he was on his feet and running back to Mayfield, his heart in his throat. _If_ Warm was there, he could not let the Sisters get to him first, not even Eli. 

He met the Sisters leaving a crowd at Mayfield’s saloon smelling like blood and vomit and gunpowder, and he looked back and forth between them, suddenly afraid to ask—

Eli rubbed his face tiredly. “Hey, Morris.” 

“What—happened?” Morris managed. 

“Mayfield’s a liar and a thief,” Eli said. 

“She’s dead now,” Charlie said, cheerfully, as he trotted past on his horse. “C’mon, we gotta get your horse and get out of here.” 

“I beg your pardon?”

“What?” Charlie looked back at Morris’s appalled expression and threw his hands in the air. “ _What?_ She was gonna have us all killed!” 

Morris privately conceded the point, noting the blood spattering the stables when they arrived, but said, “I am a _detective,_ Charlie, I could have _questioned_ her.”

“Oh, we questioned Mayfield, all right,” Charlie said. “The shit you care about: Warm wanted her to invest in his project, but she thought he was running a scheme, so she put him up in her hotel like she did us—”

“Not because she was _impressed_ by us, I’d like to point out,” Eli muttered, even as Morris swallowed uneasily. 

He’d known Mayfield to be shrewd, but Warm’s nature was to be trusting, and prone to offering up what little recompense he could for perceived kindnesses. A dizzying horror swept through him at the prospect of someone else touching Warm, knowing the feel of his mouth, the scent of his hair—

“The good news is, he figured out her plan to rob him and ran.” Eli dismounted and began helping Morris with his gear; he’d thought to collect Morris’s bag before they left the hotel, although it seemed oddly heavier than Morris remembered when he hefted it up. 

“The _bad_ news is, when _we_ showed up and started asking around, Mayfield decided Warm’s project was worth something after all, so she sent some guys after him before she sent some after us,” Charlie said. 

Morris shot him a glare to mask his renewed dread and mounted up. “If _you_ hadn’t thrown around the _Commodore_ as you did, or your own name, trying to make yourself sound like a bigger man than you are—”

Charlie met his eyes, levelly, and Eli said hurriedly, to distract them, “Then we’d be none the wiser about what Warm’s up to. Asking Mayfield to invest? But you’re rich, right, Morris? Didn’t you give him anything?”

Morris shook his head. “Warm—he never _asked._ He mentioned sending money to the project bank, but he never—I didn’t—” He broke off. A new idea was taking form in his mind, one that would enable him to make amends properly, even if they could not apprehend each other on the trail. 

“I’m sure you gave him _plenty,”_ Charlie said, with a leer and a grating laugh, and kicked his horse into a gallop. 

Eli sighed. “I swear he was dead drunk not twenty minutes ago. Let’s go. I bet we’ll get to Warm before Mayfield’s guys.” He offered Morris a surprisingly friendly smile to accompany his words, and it was with that hope and his new plan, that Morris rode off from Mayfield into the night. 

*

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This month, I had the pleasure of watching the film again on a teeny airplane seat-back screen on the way to Nepal, and then managed to add a few sentences to this chapter off and on while doing things like...sitting on a riverbank waiting for tigers XD Definitely one of my more unusual fic-writing experiences. 
> 
> Thank you, dear readers, for your patience!! And thanks to morag for the support and words when brain no make words go anymore <3 Two more chapters to go!

**Author's Note:**

> Specifics on the consent issues: Warm thinks he is entering into a sex work arrangement with Morris because Morris has spent a ridiculous amount of money on him very, very quickly, and Morris is willing to go along with it because it means he doesn't have to confess what he's really up to, per canon. They attempt to have anal sex, initiated by Warm, but it doesn't work out, and Warm hints at having had a bad, dubiously consensual experience before. 
> 
> *


End file.
